Unbreakable - Surviving the Truth
by Max and Liz believer
Summary: Max, Michael and Isabel were part of the rich and popular crowd at Roswell High. The intelligent, yet respected, Liz moved in different circles, preferably avoiding the aforementioned trio at all costs. Until that Halloween party, which changed everything. What if the small town in New Mexico hid terrible secrets and repeatedly silenced the truth?
1. PRELUDE

_This is the sequel to "Unbreakable - A Beautiful Lie". Hence, if you have ended up here without having read "A Beautiful Lie", go to my main page and look up the first book before reading this one._

 _ **To all of you leaving comments and feedback during "A Beautiful Lie". THANK YOU! I hope you'll enjoy the sequel.**_

* * *

 **PRELUDE**

Her arm was covered in blood, the red fluid dripping from her fingertips as she stretched her hand towards me. "It's not about you, Liz. This is not about you."

The tears were wet against my cheeks. "Mom, you're bleeding."

She was calm as she nodded. "They're all dead. They all died. But not you. You survived."

I followed the red trail of blood down her body, saw how it was drenching her clothes, fearfully noting how blood was dripping from between her legs.

I swayed, nausea running up my esophagus. Blood. Too much blood. Blood everywhere.

The frightening large amount of blood made the clothing stick to her body, revealing the small bump in the center of her body. The visible sign of pregnancy.

"We need to get you to a hospital!" I was desperate, my voice breaking with fear. She was bleeding out. No one could survive losing that much blood.

Her hand clamped down on my upper arm, smearing warm blood on my skin, fingers digging into my shuddering flesh.

"Mom," I tried again. She was so close now, I could smell the blood. The metallic, sickening smell of fresh blood.

On instinct, I reached out and grabbed her arm, feeling like I should steady her. But maybe it was I who needed support to remain standing, because mom looked absolutely fine. If it wasn't for all that blood, I wouldn't have suspected that anything was wrong. Her gaze was level with mine, her lips soft in a loving understand line, and she was exuding calmness.

"You're losing the baby." My own observation rung false in my head. Mom had never had a baby after me. As far as I knew, she had never been pregnant after having me. So why was she pregnant? And why was she miscarrying? Because that was obviously what she was doing. Something must be ripping her apart from the inside, considering the amount of blood everywhere.

She blinked, sadness filling her eyes, and said resolutely, "No."

I frowned. "Mom, listen to me. You need to go to-"

"It's not me, it's you," she interrupted.

Her nonsensical interruption burrowed into my heart like a dulled knife. Her words brought back reality and I directed my gaze downwards, down my own body, while mom's next words struck my eardrums, " _You_ are losing the baby, Lizzie."

To emphasize her harsh statement, I felt warmth between my legs and the accompanied nausea threatened to overtake me. My hand was shaking as I wiped it down over my flat abdomen and I barely noticed the distortion in my mother's voice as she repeated, "You are losing the baby, Lizzie," her female voice growing hoarser and more masculine towards the end of that observation.

Next I knew, mom was gone and so was all the blood. Instead, I was in bed with Max's dark worried eyes fixed on my face, the soft shine from the bedside light shrouding his face in haunting shadows.

"It's happening," he told me, gently cradling my cheek.

I sat up with a start, almost pushing him over, ripping the sheet to the side only to see the blood saturate the white sheet, while I felt its warmth cling to the insides of my thighs.

I was aware of his calm concern as the air left me.

I put my hands in the blood, as if the baby was there somewhere, panic rolling through me in waves. Somewhere at the back of my head I knew that I at most would find a ball similar to a clot. I knew because I had seen the baby inside my uterus and I knew that it was small.

Still, I wanted to see it. I wanted to feel my baby.

He was kissing my bare shoulder, cautiously touching my back, telling me things in a soothing voice, things I neither heard nor registered. I felt the love from him barging through my mind, trying to fill me up through the connection.

But I was losing a baby. We hadn't planned for a baby, we were still kids ourselves, but the fact remained that I was losing a baby. A baby that had died inside of me.

As I cried - my fingers covered in blood, my uterus cramping to expel the membranes - I cursed Command. Over and over again. He had killed our baby. There was little doubt that the fetus had died when Max and I had died. The chance of a pregnancy - even the one created by two parims, tied together by a connection - being able to survive the mother being dead for several minutes was slim.

He was telling me he loved me. Over and over again. He was sending healing energy into my uterus, his hand pressed up against my lower abdomen, lessening the sensations of the cramping, ensuring that I was not losing too much blood.

Max was taking care of me. In every way possible. In any way he could. Which made me cry even harder, my shoulders shaking with the wrecking sobs.

Despite Max's efforts at calming me down, my mind was determined to wander. When he carried my shivering and sobbing body into the shower to wash the blood away, my thoughts fled into darkness. Sergeant Steven Carter had tried his best to break me when I was in captivity, casually informing me of how he had repeatedly raped my mother, how every single baby conceived from some of those horrible acts had died in the womb. He had wanted me to doubt a happy life with Max, because Max was alien and I was not. He planted the insidious seed in my mind that a gaea would never have a child with an alien, hybrid or pure.

Max had managed to talk me out of those thoughts a while back, but since finding out about my pregnancy and the subsequent information about an impending miscarriage, my whole world had been shaken.

The water was running down my body, his hands moving gently across my naked skin to help in removing the blood, while I stood dazed and apathetic, watching the pink water swirl down the drain.

Max was trying to reach me through the connection, but my own mind was screaming too loudly for me to hear him.

 _You will never bear Max Evans' children. You will never have a child with Max. Never._

 _Never._

 _Never._


	2. ONE

**ONE**

"Elizabeth Parker," the elderly man announced slowly in a warm and gentle voice, spreading his arms out in an inviting gesture. Like he thought I would run straight into them and accept his offered hug.

But I did not know Max Evans' grandfather, George Evans. Because of that reason alone, I should not be particularly inclined to accept his welcoming embrace. But to be honest, there was something compelling about him. Something that made me feel safe. Something that made me want to get to know him.

Looking at Philip Evans' father, who up until two minutes ago I had believed to be dead, it felt as though I had known the man forever. Like he was the long lost grandfather that I never knew I had.

His smile was warm, his brown eyes kind. They almost twinkled, his eyes. As if he was carrying a secret that only he knew. The eyes brightened with warm humor at my hesitation and, without appearing disappointed, he lowered his arms and accepted my chosen distance.

George Evans echoed my silent conclusion. "You don't know me, Elizabeth." He lowered his voice to add, giving me a confidant wink, "Or is it Liz?"

Lost for words, I nodded.

I searched out Max's hand. He was standing silently next to me, his mind quiet, his stance still. His only sign of life was the light squeeze of my hand as our fingers interlaced.

George Evans smiled kindly and repeated, "You don't know me, Liz, but I have met you many times."

This should not surprise me. After all, the aliens were no strangers to the art of erasing memories. Still, I was both surprised and a little disappointed by the elderly man's statement.

To be honest, I was mostly disappointed. Max's grandfather seemed like a person that I would want to keep my memories about. He seemed like the person that one would love to have in one's life.

"When?" I croaked, my throat dry as sandpaper.

"The first time was when you were merely a couple of days old," George Evans replied. "It had just been confirmed that you, like your mother, carried the gaea gene." The expression in his eyes grew sad, the compassion that filled them clogged my own throat up with emotions. "I'm so sorry about your mother, Liz."

I tried to swallow. Max squeezed my hand. My throat prickled with sudden tears.

"Thank you," I whispered, diverting my eyes to a spot in the floor one foot ahead of me.

"I have watched you grow up," George Evans continued after a couple of seconds of silence. "I have spoken to you on the street once or twice. If my memory doesn't fail me, I believe you were skipping rope with your friends one of those times." His forehead wrinkled in contemplation. "And another time you were coloring the pavement with crayons or something alike."

I frowned. "You have spoken to me?" If it had been any other stranger telling me that he had been watching me grow up and even made contact, it would have scared me. But I felt no shivers, no danger, only curiosity.

"You might only remember me as a random man on the street," George Evans said and shrugged his shoulders. "Probably not enough to make a permanent imprint in your memory. It was not supposed to affect you or make you remember me. I only wanted to speak with you."

His eyes moved from my face to Max's, making me follow the direction of his gaze to the blank face of my boyfriend. "I'm sorry I left you, Max."

Max's face was pale, almost white, as he squeezed his lips together, a deep line between his eyebrows.

"And I'm sorry I left you, Isabel," George Evans continued, looking at Isabel.

George Evans addressing others brought my attention to the fact that I was not alone with Max and his grandfather. The grandfather had probably spoken to the others in the room while Max went to get me, considering that Isabel's face was a teary mess and even Philip Evans appeared to be having trouble keeping his emotions in check. In fact, Philip Evans looked like he was about to simultaneously cry with relief and scream in anger. An odd sight to witness.

Letting his gaze wander over the participants of the living room, George Evans told us, "We have a lot to talk about."

"Yes," Philip said, affirming his confident authority in that one syllable.

George nodded. "But first, Liz needs to rest."

All eyes flew to me, confusion mixed with suspicion blended with annoyance. My heart skipped a beat. I hated being at the center of attention. Especially when I didn't myself know what was going on or how I could remove myself from it.

But looking into George's kind eyes, it slowly dawned on me that he knew. Somehow he knew that I had, merely minutes ago, found out that I was pregnant. He could see auras too and was probably the most skilled of all the Evans men. Somehow he also knew that I needed some time alone, to get my bearings.

I glanced at Philip's face wondering if he knew too. A heavy coldness slowly crawled into me at the possibility of Max's father also knowing of my pregnancy, just like Max had, before I had. It brutally brought back the emotions I had felt not long ago, feeling not only hurt but also betrayed by Max. Without a single attempt at sugarcoating, my emotions crash-landed as I was reminded of what had just happened before the reality of the return of the long lost grandfather was added to my life.

Unaware of what I was doing, I pulled my hand out of Max's grip and took a step to the side - one step away from my boyfriend. His eyes burned into the side of my face, but I couldn't get myself to look at him.

Instead I addressed George in a burning voice, "You are right, Mr. Evans. I need to rest."

George looked from my face to Max's, a slight confusion to his expression. He understood that I knew what he meant by his suggestion, but he probably hadn't expected my reaction. Still, his voice remained as gentle as before when he said, "It was nice meeting you, Liz. I have been looking forward to it for a long time."

I tried to smile. Really. I tried. But my eyes were burning with tears and my body was trembling with a sudden lack of energy. "Nice meeting you too, Mr. Evans."

Max's hand wrapped around my upper arm as I turned with the intention of leaving the room. His breath was warm against my ear as he whispered, "I'm coming with you."

I stilled and looked up at him. I looked into those dark eyes, with the long dark lashes that I loved, the blush to his upper cheeks, and the sharpness of his jaw. I saw the dark circles under his eyes, the thinness to his once powerful jaw, and the dryness to his lips. I could see the pain shining out of those confident eyes, felt his desperate need to explain in the way he was gripping my arm, and saw the request for forgiveness and understanding in the worried shape of his mouth.

The words that came out of my mouth were as impersonal and distant as the cold manner in which I was delivering them. "You stay here with your family. Your grandfather just came back from the dead. You should talk to him." I didn't recognize my own voice. But I didn't care. I had needed Max to explain in the bathroom earlier, but he had chosen to prioritize something else. I wasn't ready to listen now. I wasn't ready to talk anymore.

His grip tightened, his breath flew over my face, as he whispered forcefully, "Liz..."

A tear dropped from my eyelash as my gaze fell to the floor and I brokenly whispered, "I can't."

"I can explain," he said, his eyes pleading while his grip on my arm remained obstinate.

"Don't," I warned him.

I was aware of the fact that the room was quiet. That everyone might be watching us. That everyone might be wondering what was happening between the Star Crossed Lovers.

"I need to be alone," I added, meeting his eyes while emphasizing every word.

He looked at me for a long time. Searching my eyes. Silently begging me to let him come with. Well, not _silently_ per say. I could hear him very clearly in my head. Through the buzzing of my hurt and pain, I could hear him asking me to let him explain, that we needed to talk, that things were not as they seemed.

It resulted in me pressing my eyes tightly shut and whispering, "Please. Stop."

 _Get out of my head,_ my mind told him.

His reaction to my words was shocked coldness. I felt how taken back he was at my order and heard how it silenced everything in his own mind.

He let me go. His hand dropped away from my arm and he diverted his thoughts away from me. It was the only way he could leave me at peace now when we were, by all things that counted, unable to block the other.

His conclusive mumbled, "Fine," cut through my heart. I could hear his own hurt in that single word and I struggled to not give in and reach for his hand, to retract my request for him to leave me alone.

His dark eyes met mine and I shield myself from the wetness in those eyes. My hand unconsciously drifted to the lower part of my abdomen and it was not until Max's eyes dropped to follow that hand movement that I realized that my mind had traveled to the fetus in my womb.

"Let me explain," he tried again, our gazes locked on my abdomen, on my trembling hand resting against my sweater.

I swallowed. Without looking at him, I said, "Talk to your grandfather. Be with your family."

" _You_ are my family."

I broke along with the break in his voice. The desperation. His fear that he had done something that might permanently damage _us_.

Tears fell down my cheeks as I chose not to respond. The words were getting stuck in my throat, like traffic at rush hour. I was left with only one option: Escape.

So I did.


	3. TWO

_Child of Dreams - Thank you :-)_  
 _Speechymol - Here's the update. Sorry for making your heart ache... Thank you for the feedback!_

* * *

 **TWO**

I did what I always do. An alien war, learning the process of how to heal, dying and becoming pure energy had not taught me how to not run when faced with overwhelming incidents. I was still me. Still a 16-year-old high school student who was rather unused to matters of the adults. Even though I had experienced more than any other high school student that I knew of.

Not many girls met the love of their lives at 16. An infinitesimal number of girls fell in love with an alien hybrid. And I was rather sure I had exclusive right on forming a mental connection to a boy, which empowered us to exchange both emotions and thoughts every second of every day.

Sure, it might seem romantic. It might seem like the perfect solution to finally getting men to understand women. What better way was there than to let them (literally) read our minds?

Of course, it had its advantages. Max being able to calm me down by 'adjusting' my line of thinking. Us being able to communicate without using words, having secret dialogues. Happy experiences got magnified by our happiness feeding into the other, building it up.

But twice the joy also meant twice the misery. When one was sad, the other one was pulled along. Our moments of sorrow, fear, misery, anger, and every other dark emotion out there, were brought completely out of proportion if we fed into those emotions.

Plus, there was the issue of never being completely alone. Never having private thoughts. Always _sharing_ everything. Even if I loved him, being so close was sometimes too much.

A lot of things flew through my mind as I laid there in the bathtub, moving my hands over my lower abdomen. The water was turning cold, signaling that I had been in the tub for too long. The skin of my hands and feet had wrinkled a long time ago and there was a mild ache in the upper part of my back from leaning back against the edge of the bathtub.

Max had not knocked on the door. He had remained downstairs. His side of the connection was rather subdued. If I focused directly on him, I could clearly hear what he was experiencing (a mixture of mainly thinking about me and listening to what his grandfather, his sister, Alex, and his father were discussing), but if I didn't, his thoughts and emotions were merely a whispered background buzz.

I liked it like that. I was not very happy with Max at the moment; acquiring some distance was just what I needed.

Trailing my finger through the water, over the location of my unborn child, I focused on that small life growing inside of me. On that small life that was going to change my own life forever.

The feeling was a blend of fear, anxiety and tentative happiness. I was going to be a mother. I was going to be a mother at the age of 17. What kind of child was it going to be? How much alien genetics would he or she have? Would the baby be mostly human or mostly alien? Perhaps Max and I had created a completely different race. Something made from two parims. Did us being parims make a difference?

But most importantly, would the baby be healthy? Would it be lacking toes or be born with parts of its organs on the outside of its body (like I had seen in one rather scary documentary once, about fetal developmental defects)? The risk of the baby having been damaged in some way was high based on the fact that I had died when he or she was-

Ice cold fear struck me, putting an abrupt end to my train of thought.

I couldn't get out of the bathtub fast enough.

I had died.

I had died while being pregnant.

The thoughts were fast and erratic, jumping from one question to the next.

How far along did one have to be before it showed up on a pregnancy test that one was pregnant? How far along was I? How many days ago did Max and I have sex? Was it even possible to be pregnant? We had not used any birth control while at the hostel, but even though it seemed like forever ago, it couldn't have been more than a week. It wasn't possible with a pregnancy. How was it possible?

Thoughts continued to fly through my mind while I, dripping with water, bent down to the bin to search out the pregnancy test I had hidden. The display was still on, the black non-serif letters causally spelling 'Pregnant', but there was no indication of how far along I was. Desperately, I ruffled through the used tissue papers and the occasional dental floss, to find the cardboard box that had contained the test. Wasn't there supposed to be an clarification as to how many weeks along you with a positive result?

My hand felt the box and I held it up in front of me, panting while I scanned the text and the images.

No. I had managed to buy a test without a week indicator.

"Damnit," I mumbled to myself.

I pressed the empty box and the old pregnancy test back into the bin, no longer putting too much time or effort into concealing them. The water from my cooling body had dripped all over the floor, my head felt cold from the water cooling in my drenched hair, and more like an afterthought I ripped a towel off a towel rack to wrap it around my body.

The water in my hair left a trail of water droplets down the corridor as I rushed out of the bathroom towards Max's room. The loud rushing of blood in my head drowned any sounds coming from below, where Max and the rest were still talking to George Evans.

The goal was Max's laptop, neatly situated in the center of the dark desk. The power cord was connected, the small light indicator on top of the cord shining green, telling me that the battery was charged and ready to go. When I disconnected the cord and brought the laptop with me over to the bed, I prayed that it was not password-protected.

As soon as I opened the lid, the screen blinked on, and a curse flew over my lips. Staring back at me was a small picture of a vampire (Dracula?), the name Max Evans next to it, and the request for a password.

 _It's 'Fuck Destiny'_ , Max announced in my head.

His voice was so loud compared to the buzz I had grown accustomed to this past hour that I jumped, almost dropping the laptop.

I should be angry with him for eavesdropping, but how could I? I was practically trying to break into his computer. Plus, I already knew that he had been thinking about me, even though we had both pretended the reverse to be true.

So without a reply, I sullenly typed in _Fuck destiny_ , but was refused entry.

Immediately, I got the mental image of how the password was really typed.

 _fuckdestiny_

After correcting how the password was typed, I was logged into the computer and Max respectfully retreated to that buzz at the back of my mind.

Firing up the web browser, I firstly found out how pregnancy is counted in days. We had gotten some information on reproduction in biology, but not the details of how to count the days.

 _The development of pregnancy is counted from the first day of the woman's last normal menstrual period (LMP), even though the development of the fetus does not begin until conception, which is about two weeks later._

Period. When did I have my last period?

My head was hurting. Nothing made sense.

I opened a writing program on the computer and started typing up the days. My last period had been at the hostel, when Max had carried me into the bathroom in the middle of the night and afterwards, in bed, soothed my menstrual cramps throughout the night. But how long ago had that been?

About two weeks ago, I reasoned. My period had been about two weeks ago. I went back to the web browser, scouring the net further for information. Ovulation happened about two weeks after the first day of a woman's period, which would be approximately...now. How could I be pregnant and it showing up on a pregnancy test when I had barely ovulated?!

It didn't make sense.

However I looked at it, I came back to that menstruation. Max and I had had sex before and after my period, but the times before were irrelevant due to the arrival of my menses.

Was it different? Were alien pregnancies different? Was this baby growing super fast? Would I be giving birth in, like, a week?

When Max came through the door one hour later, I was seated in the middle of the bed, wearing only the towel, my hair still fairly wet since I had never even wrung it out, laptop on my lap and pieces of papers strewn all around me.

The papers contained diagrams and calculations, tables and several exaggeratedly filled in question marks.

"Hey," Max said quietly, carefully closing the door behind him, his eyes fixed on my face.

Before the door had a chance to close, I announced, "I had a period. I didn't miss my period."

There was a slight grimace on his face at my voice and I felt like I wanted to do the same when I heard the raspy and frustrated tone of my voice. Seeing myself through Max's eyes, I saw a madwoman. I saw how large my eyes were, how the desperation had widened them into unblinking staring.

Despite witnessing the lunacy through Max's eyes, I couldn't stop myself. I was waving the papers filled with my nonsensical scribbles in the air in front of me, demanding him to look at them, while I was giving him numbers and facts that didn't make much sense without background information.

All that time, he didn't say a word. He stood quietly looking at me, wearing an expression I didn't have time to decipher in my need to map out the inconsistencies of my pregnancy to him. It was when I announced that the only feasible explanation to all of this must be that the pregnancy test result was incorrect (I had only taken one, after all), that he slowly closed the distance between his position in front of the door and the bed.

His silence was unnerving me and the manner in which he had stopped at the edge of the bed, slowly looking me over, was making my sentences ebb and vanish. The words grew quiet on my lips as he reached out and took a hold of the towel that had been slipping down my body for the past ten minutes without me noticing.

Holding onto the edges of it, he tugged me forward, opening the towel in the process, turning the towel into a sling. Perplexed by his quiet actions, I let myself be scooted forward to the edge of the bed. He dropped his hold on the towel and it bundled up around my hips, exposing my naked body to him. Max's eyes were dark and focused as they swept down my nude front. I didn't shy away from his gaze, rather my body warmed and responded. I was too puzzled by his actions to remember that I was actually angry with him, that I should - at the very least - be annoyed with his lack of response to my thorough equations and diagrams.

Instead I sat there quietly while he embedded all ten of his fingers into my poorly dried hair and started heating it up. The heat spread wonderfully along my scalp, removing the deep chill I hadn't been aware of, drying the dark damp tresses. He moved his hands down my neck, along the lines of my shoulders, down my arms, all the while supplying heat to warm my cold body.

His palms whispered over my breasts - the accommodating heat affecting me in ways I didn't want right now - before he heated the skin of my abdomen, my thighs, my shins, my calves, and lastly my feet.

The heat remained in my body, long after he had moved away from that specific place, even during the time he went to retrieve one of his T-shirts and a pair of sweatpants.

"I can't be pregnant," I mumbled when he started to dress me in silence. His movements were gentle, like I was made out of porcelain. I had to struggle to keep focused on remaining upset. His silence was robbing me of my words, my anger, my need for an explanation. And I didn't like it.

"You are both pregnant and not pregnant," he told me, uttering his first words since entering the bedroom with his single-worded 'Hey'. His quiet acknowledgment hit me hard against the background of his long silence. But mostly it was what he had actually said.

"What?"

He silently gestured for me to lift from my seat so that he could pull the pants over my hips, and I did so while staring at him, demanding an explanation now more than ever before.

"Let's get you under the covers," Max said. "Get you warm."

"No," I refused, placing my hands on his contracted biceps to stop him from lifting me into the position he wanted. "No."

 _Damn you, Max Evans. Tell me what's going on. Now._

He looked into my eyes for a long second, the guilt and regret on his face in sharp contrast to the angry demand in my own tear-filled eyes.

I hated that he was keeping secrets from me. I thought we were past that by now.

"I have been trying to figure it out myself," Max said solemnly, keeping his gaze locked with mine. My fingers dug deeper into his hard unrelenting biceps.

"I think you got pregnant our first time together."

No.

No.

No, that couldn't be.

I shook my head in absolute negative, while my mind was restarting calculations and scenarios. "No, that's not possible. For one, we used protection. And I had my period after that." I let go of him to wipe tears of frustration from my cheeks. "See," I mumbled behind my hands, "It doesn't make sense. I can't be pregnant. I wasn't before and I'm not now."

"You are about 8 or 9 weeks pregnant," Max said, as if he hadn't heard a word of my reasoning.

I stilled. "How do you know?"

"It's complicated."

I removed my hands to glare at him. _No shit, Sherlock! What was another complication to this already fucked up situation?!_

But Max did not want to answer that specific question, rather he informed me, "The condom didn't work. That's the only explanation."

"The condom-" I started, but he interrupted me.

"It happens, you know." His youth came through in that defensive statement, how he rushed the words out like he was a kid that was trying to talk his way out of trouble. "Condoms are only safe 98% of the time."

I shook my head. "No." Angrily, I pressed my lips together and crossed my arms across my - now T-shirt clad - chest.

A 2% chance of pregnancy? And it would happen to us on our first try. With me losing my virginity? With me later having a period? The probability numbers must be ridiculous for that one.

"Your period was a breakthrough bleeding. Must have been," Max continued, donning his more professional doctor role. He was, after all, a born healer who had attended numerous hours at the hospital. So maybe he knew.

But it all sounded so far-fetched. And I hated that I hadn't come up with 'breakthrough bleeding' in my internet search and thus had no idea what it was.

Reluctantly, I asked, "What is a breakthrough bleeding?"

"It is not that uncommon during the first trimester of pregnancy. You can bleed at 4 weeks, maybe even at 8 weeks and 12 weeks, when you would normally have your period."

Letting go of his arms and instead using my hands to press into the mattress to lift myself backwards, I made the decision to crawl underneath the covers after all.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, not moving to tuck me in or to lay down next to me. Maybe he was still respecting my request from earlier.

"It happens when there aren't enough hormones to tell your body that you're pregnant, so the body keeps having periods at intervals when it normally would have had them in a non-pregnant state."

I pulled the covers up to my chin, curled my body up into a fetal position, and whispered, "So I'm pregnant." A shudder of insecurity and fear went through me. "We're having a baby."

"No," he said. The finality of the word cut off the air supply to my lungs.

Barely squeaking out the question, I asked, "What?"

I was looking at him over the edge of the covers, tracing the grief in his frame, the resigned slumping of his body, the way he was now avoiding to meet my eyes.

"The baby is dead."

Something was squeezing my heart. A cold, ironclad hand. Squeezing it so that it couldn't beat properly. Chilling it so that all the warmth left my body. I found no words to ask for another clarification, but obviously Max knew that he owed me one.

"The baby did not survive our death. Your death."

I let this hang in the air between us. Let it soak into the silence. Let it slowly reach my ears, pierce my eardrums and echo into my brain.

"Then why...?" I whispered, stumbling on the words. "The pregnancy test. Why was it positive? I haven't... Don't you have a miscarriage if it dies? Is it still inside of me?"

I would usually consider myself as relatively intelligent, but my mind was drawing blanks at the moment. I knew too little about pregnancies, to be honest. It was not something I had, at my age, had the need to become acquainted with.

He seemed to be having difficulties getting the words out. Like he was forcing them out through a straw. "You will abort the baby, eventually. But just like your body didn't understand it was pregnant, it now doesn't understand that it's not. Your pregnancy hormones have finally reached appropriate levels and they have not simmered down yet, making your body believe that the fetus is alive and not getting the signal to terminate the pregnancy."

Terminate.

My throat closed up and I pressed my eyes together. Heat spread in my face and that familiar pressing feeling pushed on my chest.

"Breathe, Lizzie," he whispered gently.

But instead I curled into a tighter ball of human body, making myself small from the world, torturing myself with the lack of air.

So much was going through my mind. Grief, fear, relief, guilt, shame. I was feeling incredible lost and alone.

"Please, breathe." His voice was closer now, his plea more urgent.

Large tears rolled down my cheeks while I thought of it being my fault that the baby had died. I had failed horribly at protecting our child. If what Max was saying was true - if the baby had been conceived our first time together - the baby, during its first short weeks of living, had been (along with myself) starved in captivity. The baby had suffered the consequences of me being tortured and refused sleep. After captivity I had used a ridiculous amount of energy on training and later on healing Max, further pulling from the baby, probably. To top it all off, I had brought the child straight into battle along with me and let myself get killed.

Max's hand against the front of my chest had my eyes sprung open in startled shock and I immediately shrunk away from him.

"NO!" I cried out.

Pulling the covers with me, I bundled them up around me while Max looked at me with eyes glistening with tears, on his knees in the bed, his hand levitating aimlessly in the space between us.

"Let me help you breathe," he whispered pleadingly.

The sight of his torn up expression only further debilitated my breathing and I closed my eyes again in attempt to regain some self-control while emotions were tearing me up in every way possible.

"When?" I wheezed.

He couldn't possibly know what I meant by that, but the connection filled in the rest. There was a terrible lonely break in his voice when he answered, "You will miscarry any day now. If not, I'll help you. Doctors usually do, but I'll-"

"No," I said again, with my eyes still closed, trying to remain strong and keep it together. "I want my body to do it."

"Okay," he agreed quietly.

"Okay," I whispered, my voice breaking with the first of many sobs as I scooted back down under the covers and pulled them up over my face.

Max had known I was pregnant for several weeks and he hadn't told me. I didn't want to deal with how I felt about that right now.

I pressed my hand to my lower abdomen and wept for the life our love had created but which was now destroyed inside of me.

"I need to tell y-" Max started.

I interrupted him with a tight and stinging, "Don't."

"Don't shut me out," Max begged after a second of silence.

"You shut me out first," I whispered, the truth in those words hurting even more when I spoke them out loud. "This is what it feels like."

He didn't say anything else after that. I could feel everything he was feeling. Every detail of his regret and grief. I could hear his shuffling around the room, picking up the papers off the bed and putting the laptop away.

Before I drifted off to sleep, my cheeks burning and my eyes stinging from salty tears, I heard him lie down on the floor. He was not leaving the room, but keeping his distance.

Leaving me alone.


	4. THREE

_"Guest" - Thank you so so much for your feedback! And you'll find out a little bit more about the pregnancy in this upcoming chapter._  
 _  
Speechymol - Which part are you angry with Max about? For not letting Liz know that she was pregnant? Because I can certainly understand your feelings about that one. Or are you angry with Max for leaving Liz at the end of the previous chapter…? Because he was not leaving the room, just sleeping on the floor to leave Liz alone as she wanted him to. They truly do need it each other. Things are not going to be too good in some chapters yet (and this upcoming chapter is not the most uplifting one either - sorry), but at least this chapter (spoiler alert ;-) ) ends on a slightly happier note than a lot of chapters have done lately. Thank you so so so much for the feedback!_

* * *

 **THREE**

The baby's crying filled the air. There was nothing like a baby's desperate cries. It cut straight through your core, making it impossible to not respond. The walls around me were white, lacking decoration, making the room painfully bright. The brightness was enhanced by the sunlight shining boldly through every one of the many windows.

I didn't recognize this room. Its details were blurry, made even less distinct whenever my gaze moved from one spot to the next in my attempt to orient myself.

The crying continued, bouncing off the bare walls, digging into my most inner being. Lacking orientation and purpose, I decided to follow the cries. The unrelenting crying kept growing louder, telling me that no one was attending to the child. The baby was alone.

With a stumble, I set out to follow the crying, but the way it was echoing and bouncing around the room, the rooms – with all of their identical naked white walls – turned into a maze of confusion.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," I kept repeating under my breath. Mostly to hear my own voice in the ever increasing sound of crying, but also as a silent assurance to the deserted baby that help was on its way.

The white cradle with the white canopy came up so quickly in front of me that I bumped into it. It shook in its meager foundation and on quick reflex I reached out to stop it from tumbling over.

The crying was at its loudest now, signifying that I had reached my goal. There was no hesitation, only purpose, as I leaned over the white-painted wooden cradle, its interior clad with white cotton. The moment my eyes fell on the crying baby, my heart stopped. With a cry of fear, I fell back one step, putting distance between myself and the baby, but I could still see it clearly. And like watching an accident about to happen, knowing that it would be terrible, I couldn't look away.

The baby's skin was dark gray, almost brownish, and wrinkled. The skin looked sooty, as if it had been rolled in ashes. I could see its sunken black eyes, the (too many) fingers and the (twelve, there were twelve) toes. Its skin looked like dried paper, over-tight on the thin tiny body.

I tried to swallow past the fear that had built up in my throat. The baby looked mummified, like from one of the poorly made horror movies I had seen when younger. And just like the mummies in the horror movies, this one was alive.

Even though the baby looked like it had been dead for centuries, its mouth - with its bottomless blackness – was producing the familiar and normal sound of a distressed, and very much alive, infant. Although the baby looked like it had not eaten or drunk anything in years, it was moving its arms in agitation and kicking its legs in frustration.

The deep black eyes flickered to my face and I staggered backwards. The crying continued, with tears rolling from those staring eyes, filling me with the most encompassing grief I had ever felt.

The appeal for forgiveness was instinctive as my hoarse voice mumbled, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Without being able to explain it, I felt responsible for this child. I had made it into what it was. _I_ had abandoned it.

The baby's inconsolable crying was making me start sobbing, and I repeatedly echoed, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

His sudden arms around my waist, hugging my back to his front, did not even surprise me. His presence told my mind that this was a dream, a horrible nightmare. The baby's cries grew louder and more insistent as I turned my back on it to press my face into his chest.

"Make me wake up," I sobbed into his shirt. "Make me wake up."

Immediately answering my prayer, I was returned to consciousness. Returned to the land of the living in Max's room at the Evans' residence. His familiar scent enveloped me, his arms around me making me feel simultaneously small and safe.

"It was just a dream," he whispered and I curled up in his embrace, pressing my nose into the warm indent at the bottom of his throat between his collarbones.

"I know," I replied in a whisper, the barely dried salty tears making my cheeks feel oddly stiff and changing the quality of my voice. "I know."

He was threading his fingers through my hair, moving his hand soothingly down my back and then back up to my head again. The movement was slow and repetitive, quietly pulling me back from the dream.

"Why do I have these nightmares?" I mumbled after minutes of silence.

I had always been plagued by nightmares. For as long as I could remember. They had escalated after the death of my mother, but regardless nightmares had always been a part of my life.

"I don't know," he replied. After a long pause, he added, "Maybe it's your mind trying to deal with things. Maybe even giving you clues."

"How do you mean?"

My arms were bent between my breasts, squeezed tightly between us, while leaving my fingers free to slowly roam a small area of his well-shaped bare chest. His chest was still thin, his muscles not as filled out as they had been, his skin not the warm bronze color I had become used to.

He hesitated before answering. "There is still so much we don't know about parims. About what we are. Maybe your nightmares are a part of that."

I frowned. "Why would the parim status - if it's supposed to be so pure and good - give me nightmares?"

He shifted slightly, entangling his legs with mine, and pressed a kiss to my forehead. "I'm thinking that it might be because you're so good, the evil of this world is too much for you to handle. Instead it seeps into your unconsciousness." His Adam's apple bopped against the tip of my nose as he swallowed. "Maybe it's a consequence of all those memory erasures you have endured when growing up."

When I didn't say anything, he shrugged, "Or maybe you're simply having nightmares and there's no reason for it."

"Maybe," I mumbled in a small voice.

We laid like that for several minutes, our legs entwined, our chests pressed tightly together, my breath warming a spot on his skin, and his ruffling the air above my head.

"Do you want me to leave you alone again?"

His quiet request made my stomach coil. I was struck with immeasurable guilt for making him feel unwanted and for having pushed him away earlier. The very real risk of having to sleep alone again prickled along my arms and legs with acidic intensity. Sleeping without Max next to me usually resulted in worst nightmares. Making the monsters more real and the evil darker.

"No," I whispered brokenly and pressed my cheek as hard as I could against his skin. "Don't leave. Don't leave me alone."

It was not until his body relaxed at my words that I realized how tense he had been, which didn't particularly ease my bad conscience for how I had reacted earlier.

"I haven't known for long," he said then. He was controlling his thoughts enough to not let me read him ahead of what he was saying, making me grow silent in anticipation of his next words.

"I should have known," he continued. "I should have found the fetus when I scanned your body after we had sex in the bathroom."

The memory flashed through my mind. The memory of Max taking me against the wall after removing me from that meeting with his father, when Mr. Evans had shown us his memories of Max and I as young. I was reminded of Max's reaction at the time. Of how betrayed by the connection he had felt. How he had felt manipulated by it, as if we were not in control of our own bodies or urges.

As if it had wanted us to become pregnant.

Well, I guess it won. We _did_ get pregnant.

"But I didn't see it," he said. Through his mind I saw him staring off into the distance, staring unseeingly at the dark wall of his bedroom, while he was giving me the explanation he hadn't been able to before. "Maybe the connection was preventing me from doing so, or maybe it's some kind of safety thing. A way for the connection to protect a child from intruders, someone like the Sergeant breaking into the connection. Essentially, concealing the baby from prying eyes."

He was dragging his hand along the upper border of the sweatpants I was wearing, the movement comforting. "I never felt its presence, was never aware of a third heartbeat in our connection."

"Mm," I murmured absently, hanging onto his every word.

Why had it remained hidden from us? Wouldn't it have been safer if we had known about the pregnancy, so that protective measures could have been taken?

"I felt the baby when we died," Max said and he might as well have pushed a dagger into my heart. The emotional pain was as horrible as a physical blow.

Max's voice was growing thicker as he continued, "As Command started pulling power from us, I heard its heartbeat. I didn't know what it was at first. It was like the quick fluttering of a small bird's wings. Maybe Command pulling power from the connection made the connection drop whatever veil it had held over the fetus, revealing it to me. It was first when we came back from the dead and I didn't hear that fluttering anymore, that I realized what it had been. That it had been a baby."

"But-," I started.

Max interrupted me. "Once, a year ago or something like that - at the hospital, I connected with a pregnant woman. She was suffering from eclampsia and she was very bad off. I connected to calm her blood pressure. That quick heartbeat was all around me, even quicker than the fast heartbeat of an infant. The baby was stressed."

His arms tightened around my body, pulling me even closer as he softly added, "Our baby's heartbeat was also that quick. Stressed. Right before she died."

The tears stung my eyes. "She?"

"Yes," he whispered, voice trembling with lost hopes and what ifs. "It was a girl."

I might be grasping for straws, but, "Maybe she came back to life, just like we did, and that's why you can't hear the heartbeat anymore. Maybe the connection went back to concealing her from us."

He was quiet for a couple of breaths, and my heart sank to the bottom of my stomach.

"Do you want to see her?" he asked then.

The sob surprised me, giving me an abrupt shake as I pressed out, "Yes."

He pulled back, his action urging me to look up at him. His eyes were filled with emotions, shining warmly in the mild light from the full moon outside the windows. He was watching me closely, wondering if I was going to break. He didn't want to break me. "Are you sure?"

His serious question made me pause, made me worry that I was about to witness something terrible. Was the baby all mangled up in there? Was she missing hands or feet?

The dried up, sooted baby from my nightmare flashed into my mind, momentarily paralyzing me in coldness. I shuddered. What if she looked like that?

Reading my mind, he clarified, gently and carefully, "It's nothing like that. But… she's not alive. It might-"

I blinked. No matter what I might see, I needed to see her. "I want to see our baby, Max."

Max responded to my no-nonsense demand with a wordless nod. Cradling his thumb and index finger around my chin, he guided my mouth to his. As our lips met, he took my mind on a tour through my body. Calmly, he brought me into my uterus, our daughter's transitory home.

And there she was.

She was barely recognizable as a human baby, almost looking more alien than the adult aliens I had seen in real life. But I knew that all fetuses looked alien in the beginning, and she was - after all - only a couple of weeks post conception. The neck was poorly differentiated, and fingers and toes were still webbed. She had eyes, but her eyelids were fused shut and, in her case, they would never open. She had tiny earlobes, and her mouth and nose had just started to take shape. It was difficult to tell that she was a girl, but I felt that she was, just like Max probably had.

No bigger than a grape, she was very still, floating aimlessly in the amniotic fluid.

I fell in love with her immediately. Even when I saw no sign of life, I felt that she was part of us, that she belonged to us.

And without preamble, I started crying.

Max tried to guide me away from my womb, but I stayed. I stayed there, looking at our dead baby. She looked so peaceful and unharmed. It comforted me some, that she was not visibly hurt, and that she looked nothing like the baby in my most recent nightmare.

She could have been sleeping.

Max wanted me to see this. He needed me to see what he had seen. That our baby was not alive.

 _It's called a missed miscarriage or a silent miscarriage._

At this point, my violent tears were shaking my body, my inner eye staring at the fetus, seeing no beating heart. His explanation in my mind, combined with what I could see right in front of me, brought the truth to tormenting authenticity.

She was dead. She had been dead for several days. And neither I nor my boyfriend with healing powers could bring her back.

My body was trembling with shock as I retreated to the real world of Max's bed and Max's embrace.

"What good are your abilities if we can't even save our own child?" I cried, my body folding into itself against him. I was melting my grief into his body, wetting his skin with my tears, leaving marks from my fingernails through indents in his arms.

A desperate need for him to bring our daughter back to life was growing. The need, which had been neither sensible nor rational had Max not been who he was, originated as a faint whispered possibility but quickly escalated into a roaring silent scream.

He knew what I was asking - _demanding_ \- of him without me having to specify or say it out loud. It would be impossible to not hear the scream in my mind, in my body, in my soul.

When I tightened my fists and repeatedly pummeled them against his chest, mangled sobs bleeding past my lips with every pounce, he didn't say anything. With drowning sorrow, he waited me out. Waited until my fists ached, my arms trembled, my skin felt too hot for comfort. When I collapsed against his chest, eyes hurting from the salty tears, he hugged me tightly. When my brain felt like it was going to cave in and turn into dysfunctional goo, he started rocking our bodies slowly. His cool lips kissed my feverish forehead and my hair stuck to the tears on his cheeks as he pressed kisses to my tresses.

That night was difficult.

With everything that had happened to me since that last day of October, with every lie, every hit, every threat to my life, every physical blow, _this_ was one of the most difficult things I had ever gone through.

It might not be the fact that I had lost a baby just hours after finding out that there even was one, but more the concept of 'the last drop making the cup run over'.

I was touching rock bottom; hovering dangerously close to it. But there was a thin thread around my heart which had not been broken, which I was hanging on by. A thin thread that was keeping me away from hitting the bottom.

The other end of that thin thread was attached to Max. Max, who held me through the night, shared my tears and soothed my pain. My beautiful alien hybrid parim. My life anchor. My main reason for living right now.

In the early hours of the morning, I whispered, "I love you", and he placed his hand against the lower part of my abdomen and echoed, "Forever."

* * *

 **A/N: Well, will you look at that. I managed to finish a chapter "normally", without a cliffhanger ;-) Thank you so much for reading and for leaving feedback! I get so excited about every word :-) Have a great weekend!**


	5. FOUR

_**Child of Dreams** \- No, the baby cannot be saved :-( Thank you for leaving a comment!_  
 _ **Speechymol** \- Yes, I suspected that you were angry with Max for not sharing the news of Liz's pregnancy ;-), so I'm glad to hear that you have accepted his reason to do so. Thank you so much for the feedback!_  
 _ **"Guest"** \- Yes, Max and Liz are fighting an uphill battle right now - and have for a long time. It will be better, soon, I promise :-) Grandfather George knows a lot. More on that in future chapters. Thank you so much for the feedback!_

* * *

 **FOUR**

"Lizzie?"

I was submerged under water and the sound of my name was distorted by the heaviness of water molecules.

"Lizzie, honey? Time to wake up."

It was not the same voice I had gotten accustomed to in my latest hours of grief and defeat. This was not Max.

The water molecules were easing back, creating space for my father's voice to break through, resonating clearly in my head as he repeated, "Lizzie?" in that soft voice he had used when trying to rouse me from sleep when I was little.

Blinking my eyes open, I realized that I had not been under water (obviously), but in the deepest of sleeps. My mind - and possibly my body too - was exhausted by the last couple of days. Also, it had been late into the early morning hours before I had fallen asleep after Max and I had discussed the horrific ramifications of the pregnancy and had guided me into my own womb to look at our daughter.

In my best teenage impersonation, I pulled the pillow over my head and grumbled, "Go away."

The pause that followed was lengthy enough to make me suspect that he had actually left. Until his careful and sad voice declared, "Breakfast is ready. You need to eat something, honey."

The pillow was removed from my head and I groaned as the light from the room hit the outside of my closed eyelids. The bed dipped and I warmed as he placed his hand on my head. Slowly caressing my hair, he added, "You have gone through so much, Ella. You need food. You're looking too thin."

The lack of sleep was tempting me to be annoyed with him and inform him that I needed sleep just as much as food to recuperate, but the worry that was cloaking his voice stopped me. Instead I curled up, hugging my knees to my abdomen and whispered, "Five more minutes, Dad."

There was a pregnant pause before he chuckled, increasing the warmth inside of me. He gave my head a familial pat and said lovingly, "Of course, honey."

The mattress moved again as he got to his feet and I listened intently to the squeaking of old floorboards as he crossed the floor to the door. When the soft sound of a door moving reached me, I turned my head towards the sound, pulling the comforter away from my partly hidden face, "Dad?"

He immediately turned, looking over at me. My heart swelled to the point of almost breaking with the familiarity of his face and the hope that lightened his eyes. "Yes?"

"I love you," I told him, my voice thick with emotions and sleep.

The soft smile reached his eyes in the most beautiful of ways. "I love you too."

He stayed like that, looking at me across the distance of wooden floor between us, until the unconditional love for his daughter became too much for my heart to bear right now and I cleared my throat. "I'll be right down, Dad."

Dad shifted, broken from the spell, and chuckled again. "Sure. Of course, hun. See you downstairs."

By the time he had left the room, I was wide awake. But my sudden alertness provided me with no encouragement to move. The pillow was soft against the back of my head as I stared up at the white ceiling. I heard the soft sounds of indistinct conversations from downstairs and if I focused I could clearly hear what Max was up to and what he was thinking. I could even see through his eyes and almost feel present at the breakfast table without being physically there.

Max was watching his grandfather a lot, his feelings and thoughts about his grandfather's return moving from wonderment to curiosity to confusion to hurt to betrayal. In other words, Max was struggling to make up his mind about his grandfather's sudden appearance. I had been too wrapped up in the events of my (missed) miscarriage to go through what information George Evans had already provided during conversations which I had not attended.

Making an effort now to start piecing some things together, I attempted to go through Max's thoughts and memories. It felt foreign to do so; intruding. Up until now, I had never actively rummaged through anyone's mind, only passively received what Max had provided at the time. My stomach audibly churned with discomfort, my own actions reminding me of how my privacy and free will had been tainted and rejected during the forceful encounters with Sean and his father.

Undoubtedly, Max was aware of my stroll around his mind, but being a supportive pillar of strength, he calmly let me pass. It was my own aversion to trespassing that had me pick up on only a few details about George's story.

George Evans had disappeared from Max's life when Max had been around seven years old. He had not let anyone in his family know about his plans of faking his own death. For some reason, it had been important that no one knew of the true reason or his whereabouts. This little fact made me search Max's mind more diligently, following that string of thoughts that had been created in my boyfriend's memory. But I couldn't find the exact reason for George's mysterious disappearance, merely that he had spent the past (almost) ten years with an Indian tribe.

At that point, my head was hurting and I cancelled the active mind search.

 _Your dad's made hot chocolate for you_ , Max announced softly in my head.

A rush of love billowed through me, a combination of my own feelings for both my father and Max, plus Max's feelings for me. It made me simultaneously warm and cold. I pulled the sheet to the side and looked down at my my abdomen. Hauling the T-shirt up to the bottom border of my breasts, I slowly stroked the skin of my exposed abdomen.

It was a strange feeling. Knowing that something was in there, but also knowing that it was not alive. That I was carrying something dead. Not even that fact could lessen my affection for the unborn girl.

 _And Amy is making pancakes with chocolate chips,_ Max continued, his mental voice more subdued than before, nearly hesitant in addressing me. Wanting to distract me, while hating to disturb.

"That's a lot of chocolate," I mumbled, not realizing that I was addressing my womb before I continued talking, still in that quiet voice that you would use for an animal or a small child. "They want me to eat. To regain my strength. But there's no reason to, is there? Because it won't help you." My trembling hand continued to caress the area where my daughter was hidden. "It won't nourish you or make you grow. So what's the use?"

Tears rolled down my cheeks. Unnoticed. Unremembered. Unimportant.

"But they don't care about that," I continued, my voice becoming thicker. "They're only interested in rebuilding their warrior. Their weapon. Their means of killing the mayor."

Lifting my gaze from my abdomen, my hand stilling against my skin, I stared unseeingly out in the room. "I'm not a person anymore." The words - the realization - cut into my heart, shooting a shudder through my entire body. "I'm a thing."

Biting into my lower lip I fought to restrain the onslaught of violent tears. "I'm no longer free."

It finally hit me. I finally realized what Max had been afraid of all these years. Why he had worked so hard to scare me away. Why he had refused to let me close, even with the risk of Sean getting a hold of me. Why he hadn't wanted me to love him.

Max had foreseen this. Years ago. Even if he impossibly could have known of the uniqueness of our connection or the concept of parims, he had feared that he would be rescuing me from one hell only to throw me into another.

Had Sean gotten his way, my life would have been filled with sexual assaults, forced acts, energy drainage, memory erasures, and being entirely robbed of my free will.

With Max, I had love and compassion. I had his constant support. He never forced me into anything and we shared in each others' pain. When I bled, he bled. But outside of Max, only by living my life as Max's girlfriend and bonded, there was violence and demands. There was pain and risks.

And eventually, the outcome became the same; loss of free will.

I sat up in bed, pulling my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. Resting my chin on my knees, my tears drying on my cheeks as the analytical part of my brain fired up, I wondered if my life would have been calmer with Sean. If I had been left to follow the aliens' plan. I probably would have been allowed to continue school, maybe even college. Quite possibly they would have let me retain my friendship with Maria and certainly with Alex - seeing that he was my protector.

All the nasty things that might happen would be erased. For all I knew, I would be leading a normal, comparatively uneventful life.

Counting from that night when Max and I had gone to the Evans-owned house in Hondo, to have sex for the first time, I hadn't attended school. I missed school. How had my (and everyone else's) absence been explained? Would I ever be able to go back? Would I ever have any semblance of a normal life or would Max and I (considering our unusual abilities and status) always have to be at the aliens' beck and call?

Would I go to college? Would Max and I have a family?

Or would we continue as these broken shells of who we used to be, surviving on bare minimum only to be ready for the next fight?

The raised voices from downstairs interrupted my dark thoughts. I could pinpoint the owners of those voices in a heartbeat.

Max and his father.

The angry confrontation instantly pulled me out of the daze I had been in and thus Max's emotions flooded me. His anger and frustration were so deep and overwhelming that I could not make any sense of it.

But I knew that he needed me.

Swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, I was halted in my mission by the door flying open.

Maria whirled inside, the opening of the door magnifying the screaming from downstairs.

"What's going on?!" I asked hurriedly before she had a chance to open her mouth.

"Max told me to come up here and be with you," Maria said breathlessly. "And just as I left for the stairs, all hell broke lose."

She had melted chocolate in the corner of her mouth, her hair was decorated with the movements of sleep and she wore an oversized T-shirt and cotton shorts, accentuating the length of her bare legs.

"What hell?" I asked, walking past her towards the door. She turned and grabbed my arm. I frowned, looking towards her impatiently, "What happened?"

"I don't know," Maria said, slowly and irritated, emphasizing every word. "It's _your_ boyfriend; he's hard to figure out sometimes."

I hesitated. Max was screaming downstairs about my rights and my need to go to school and…

I inhaled deeply and sighed the breath out slowly. _Of course._

"Tell me what you know," I asked my friend tiredly.

She shrugged. "Everything was fine. We were having breakfast. Mom made her infamous chocolate chip pancakes and I was happily minding my own business, adding even more stuff to the pancakes-"

"Maria," I interrupted. "Please."

Back in the day, she would have rolled her eyes at me or even got annoyed with me for interrupting. But she was acting differently around me nowadays. Like she needed to be careful what she said and did. As if I would break otherwise.

I hated it.

"I didn't really see what Max was up to. He was seated right in front of me, but I was really too busy-" This time she interrupted herself, looked at me with a goofy guilty expression, before continuing, "I look up when he drops the spoon. When our eyes meet, he stares at me - like super-intensely - and tells me to go to you."

"Why?" I whispered.

She shrugged again. "Didn't say. Just that I needed to go now." She looked down at where her hand was still holding onto my arm. "And knowing that you have this special connection, I was afraid something had happened to you, so I left. Immediately. It was a bit weird that he wouldn't go himself, but I guess he had this urgent need to yell at his father."

"And stop me from interrupting," I added quietly.

Maria had been sent to calm me down and keep me distracted.

She raised her gaze and searched my face closely. "Maybe _you_ should tell me what happened."

I met her eyes, considered doing as she suggested, then turned and walked towards the door.

"Liz," Maria said cautiously, "I wouldn't-"

She grew quiet as I closed the door, blocking the voices out and leaving only the two of us in the room.

I swallowed, walked back to her and took her hand. "Let's talk."

With a hesitant, "Okay," she let herself be lead to the bed and we took a seat.

I folded my legs underneath me, wrung my hands in my lap. I was the perfect picture of distraught nervousness.

"What's wrong?" She was concerned, placing a calming hand on my knee while her large green eyes catalogued the small nervous movements of my body.

 _Heck._ I met her eyes. _Let's just get this over with._

To the person positioned in front of me, who could _not_ read my mind, I said, "I'm pregnant."

Her response was silence. Which was never a good thing when it came to Maria DeLuca. Her face shifted several shades of pale while her eyes kept staring at me. Frankly, they looked like they were going to fall out of their orbits.

My mouth was dry. "Apparently, I've been pregnant since my first time with Max. Since before Command captured me and Max."

"Apparently?" she squeaked. "But that's…"

"…quite a long time ago," I filled in. "Yeah, I know. Max thinks it had something to do with the connection, that it was concealing the baby-"

Maria put her hands up in front of her, "Whoa whoa. Wait. You didn't use protection? Liz?" She shook her head in confusion, her forehead wrinkling with perplexity. "You, of all people-"

"We did," I interrupted loudly. Lowering my voice, I repeated, "We did. But it didn't work."

Maria let out a heavy breath. "Huh."

I looked at her, forgetting that I was supposed to tell her more, momentarily losing myself in the semi-concealed truth I had yet to tell.

"So… What now?" she asked. "We're raising a baby? God…" She dipped her face into her hands, scrubbing them rather harshly against her cheeks and eyes. "You're only sixteen - well, almost seventeen, but still… Oh My… This is big. This is-"

"It's not alive," I said quietly.

She shouldn't have been able to hear me, but she did, and her response in the form of complete stillness was instantaneous.

Her face remained hidden behind her hands when she asked, something akin to fear in her voice, "Not alive? Is that some alien thing? Babies are not alive until born? Or what?"

It was like looking at myself from the outside. I could see myself sitting on the bed and calmly explain the details to something that had wrecked me just hours earlier, without feeling that it was actually me speaking.

"I'm supposed to miscarry. My body just hasn't got it yet."

Maria grimly blew air out between her teeth, removing her hands. "And you accuse _me_ of not being clear when I retell things."

I licked my lips. "Sorry."

Her shake to the head dismissed my apology. "No, no. That's okay. This is probably one of those weird alien problems that I'm just not supposed to understand."

"Actually," I grimaced. "There's nothing alien about it."

She tilted her head to the side, trying to figure me out. "Okay, then. You and Max do the deed and you get pregnant. No one knows about this for several weeks and now when you finally figured it out, it's dead?"

"Basically," I whispered, the grief catching up with me.

She caught sight of the grief as it dripped into my trembling hands. As it crept into my already cried out eyes.

"Babe," she murmured, looking guilty for summarizing it that way. Her arms wrapped around me without delay, luring the grief to the front, breaking my feeble facade.

"The baby died when Command killed me." The words got stuck in my best friend's blonde thick hair right before the tears clogged up my throat and there was no more room for words.

I guess the shouting from downstairs ceased somewhere around then. Sometime when Maria was hugging my tightly, shushing my sobs and letting her shirt absorb my tears, all anger ran out of Max and he left the kitchen to aimlessly roam the garden.

Fast forward one hour and I had told Maria all of my dark thoughts, all about my grief about losing the baby, and as life has it, my childhood friend was succeeding in making me smile and laugh.

It had been more than 24 hours since my last meal, which was probably what eventually drove Max to enter the room and crash our bubble of girly giggling and eye-rolling at Maria's stories about Michael.

Max had wanted to stay away, to give me this much needed time with Maria, but he was also worried that I hadn't eaten.

"Aww," Maria announced theatrically as Max entered the room with a tray filled with beverages and baked goods, "Isn't he the best boyfriend ever?"

Max offered her an eye-roll, which looked misplaced on his upset face, while I boxed her lightly on the arm.

She laughed lightly and looked back at me. Her face made me smile. This past hour had transformed her to something a lot more like the Maria I used to know and it calmed my spirit in ways I hadn't dared to hope. We were not completely damned, after all.

I spread my arms out and she willingly crept into them. Hugging her close, I whispered into her hair, "Thank you, Ria."

"Any time, girlfriend," she replied, a catch in her voice. Pulling back, she patted my knee affectionally, "Now. Eat something."

My smile cooled some at the thought of food, and I firmly ignored the slight turn of my stomach when I nodded, "Right."

Max stood like a statue, with the tray in front of his chest, and waited until Maria had left the room before he placed the tray on the bed in one assertive move.

"Amy prepared a tray for you," he said, folding his left leg underneath him to take a seat on the edge of the bed, his right foot resting on the floor. There was something cautious, almost distant, in his voice.

Pointing to beverages, plates and bowls, he monotonously labeled the various food items, "There's chocolate chip pancakes, cereal, egg and bacon, oatmeal, hot chocolate, peanut butter and jelly sandwich, tea-"

I was shaking my head in amusement, "Did Amy do all of this? Who is she trying to feed? An army?"

Max looked up at me, eyes dark and serious. Not a single thread of amusement on his face. "No. Not an army. Just you."

The chagrin heated my cheeks and I turned my gaze away, feeling ungrateful.

"Everyone's really worried about you, Liz," Max said quietly but strongly.

"I know," I whispered, still not meeting his eyes.

Three seconds of silence passed and when he spoke anew, his voice was softer, "There's also some chicken broth, if your stomach can't handle all the other more heavy stuff yet."

I nodded, my attention fixating on the stain on the knee of Max's jeans. I frowned. It was not grass. Too dark. What was it?

"Liz?" he said, rerouting my attention to his face. "Please eat something."

I scanned the food and reached for the chicken broth. It was probably the wisest choice right now.

He let me eat three slow spoons of the broth before saying, "You'll need your strength when going back to school."

The spoon clanked against the bowl when I dropped it, droplets of broth escaping the bowl and landing on the back of my hand. "What?"

I didn't know if I should be happy, nervous, anxious or upset. I didn't know any more.

"I talked to my father-"

 _'_ _Talked'?_ I questioned, quite clearly remembering the yelling between Max and his father.

Max sidestepped my mental jab, "-and we'll be going back to school next week."

I looked at him closely, finding no words.

Max was trying to read my reaction but coming up short, just like I was. "Is that okay? That's what you wanted, right?"

Was it? Of course it was. But…

In the absence of my answer, he changed tracks. Very clearly so.

Darkness slowly bled into his eyes, chilling me as I saw it happened, and then he asked the question that made my blood turn completely cold. "Would you rather have been with Sean than me?"


	6. FIVE

_Child of Dreams - You are so right! Thank you :-)  
Speechymol - Let's see if Liz can make up for what she thought about Sean and Max in the previous chapter. Thank you so much for the feedback!_

* * *

 **FIVE**

 _Would you rather have been with Sean than me?_

The question, pulled from his darkest parts, echoed in the space between us.

It made me angry more than anything. Slowly, I put the bowl of chicken broth back on the tray.

I looked up to meet his black eyes head on. Slowly, pronouncing every word distinctly, I said, "Of course not."

"That's not what I heard." He still sounded so cold. Nothing like Max. But I recognized his behavior for my own. He was defensively retreating behind a wall to not get hurt. To protect himself against any possibly unpleasant answers I might provide.

Unhindered by my own understanding, the chill was working itself into my very bones.

"I heard your conversation with yourself before."

"You misunderstood," I tried, because he must have. I never intended for it to sound as if I would willingly choose Sean before Max.

Tightly, he said, "You were comparing your current life to a life with Sean." I noticed his fist clench against his thigh. "Making a life with Sean seem almost cozy in comparison."

"You can't be serious." Anger escalated, its heat pushing at the chill. "In that case, you didn't hear me at all."

He was dangerously calm, almost frozen in his seat. "I hate that you have been forced into this life. I hate that I have been part of hurting you. But for you to consider that a life with Sean would have been better-"

His facade of detachment made my own pool of emotions explode.

"I didn't say that!" I yelled, making the tray and all its components shake in its unstable foundation on the bed.

"You might as well have," he replied, not raising his voice a single decibel.

"You know as well as I do that this is an impossible situation," I cried and sighed inwardly. That's not what I wanted to say. That sentence might have just made things worse.

"You would rather live with weekly memory erasures, rape, and being depleted of your energy - effectively risking your life - than to be with me."

"NO!" I cried, pushing my hands through my hair in frustration. "Nothing could replace you. This has nothing to do with _you_."

 _Fuck,_ I cursed myself silently, frustration at not being able to explain it properly blending with fear of him misunderstanding me. _I'm making it worse._

He wasn't listening. His jaw tightened and he bit out, "Did you ever consider how it would feel for me to have to heal you as a result of his _methods_ , over and over again, knowing that I could do nothing to save you? That you had already bonded with _him_? We might as well have been dead, both of us. Death would be less painful."

"Listen to me," I pleaded, the desperation breaking my voice. "Please-"

"I never forced you to be with me. If there was any other way to save you, I would-"

" _Listen to me!_ " I cried.

He couldn't get any stiller than he already was, but at least his mouth closed and he pressed his lips together.

When giving the chance to speak, I found myself without words.

 _Go ahead,_ he told me telepathically, his mouth still tight, his eyes black.

"I was thinking about free will," I started, my voice softening. "And you know, as well as I do, that neither of us have much in that department right now."

"You weren't only thinking about that," Max objected bitterly.

I pulled back, shut down, my voice lowering to a mumble under my breath, "I don't know what to tell you. I don't know what you want me to say. It wasn't about you." I looked him straight in the eye, raising my voice to normal speaking volume. "It wasn't about you. You are the good in all of this. You are the only reason I can keep going. You are my only reason. Okay?"

I reached into his lap and grabbed his tight fist, wrapping my hand around his whitened knuckles. He didn't soften the tightness, but he didn't withdraw his hand at my touch either.

"I need to be able to sort things out in my head without you reading into it. My thoughts are all over the place and sometimes I have to organize it in columns and categories to get a handle on it. And to do so, I have to weight everything back and forth. It doesn't mean that it's the truth. It doesn't mean that it's what I mean. They're _thoughts_. I can't control them and I cannot _not_ think them."

"One's thoughts are more real than one's words," Max interrupted. "Once you make it into words, everything gets filtered."

It was like talking to a wall. Where was my understanding Max?

"Not for me. I don't know how it's like for other people, but my thoughts are not the end result. They're too transient, too disorganized." I felt his hand soften slightly beneath mine, igniting a hope that he was starting to listen. "Did you not hear what my conclusion was from that discussion I had with myself?"

A visible ripple moved through the muscles of his jaw as he clenched them even tighter, informing me that I had brushed against the truth.

"My flighty thoughts made me realize what you have spent your whole life trying to do. Why you have avoided me, scared me, pushed me away and even yelled at me. Those scattered thoughts made me realize - again - what an amazing person you are. How self-sacrificing you are. How you were prepared to do the things you said earlier - heal me when Sean would have hurt me, over and over again, even when it would cause you pain - just to protect me."

The blackness in his gaze was retreating, the golden brown of his irises slowly returning. The progress spurred me on, relaxed me. "I never fully understood how you were willing to sacrifice me to Sean even if it meant that I would be leading a life in mental imprisonment. I never truly got why you fought our connection, when it would obviously keep me safe from Sean, something you wanted. But now I do. You did it for exactly those reasons I was thinking about earlier. You wanted me to have a normal life."

He averted his eyes, his hand turning soft in mine.

My voice turned even gentler. "And the only way for me to even have a shot at a normal life, considering my situation, considering my few options, was to have a life with Sean. Because at least then I could live under the _pretense_ that everything was normal. You were willing to sacrifice your own happiness, the feelings you had for me, to give me something akin to normalcy in a very abnormal situation."

I swallowed heavily, the guilt of what my thoughts must have sounded like to him, infecting my conscience. "And then, after everything we have gone through. After us choosing each other, I say what I said earlier - _in my thoughts though_ \- and attack the very reason why you wanted to push me away."

My 'innocent' reasoning earlier had effectively - and very unintentionally - walked all over everything Max had gone through to be with me. It made me sick. I hadn't meant anything by it and it hadn't been intended, but the thought made me sick.

"I wouldn't trade you for anything," I said, fresh tears thickening my voice.

He met my eyes, his irises having fully retrieved their amber hue. His aura was transforming from the previously dangerous stormy emotions to the warm nuances of blue that usually surrounded him.

"I know it's no excuse, but I'm just so fed up with this situation." He flinched at my statement, so I hurried to clarify, "Not with you. And you know that. If you look inside my mind and soul - which you can - you'd see that I love you with every cell of my being."

Shame flashed across his features, because it was true. If he just let go of this most recent emotional development, he would have seen - and felt - how I really felt.

"We have this incredible one-of-a-kind connection. We see into each other's souls when we make love. You have brought me back from the brink of death. I have brought _you_ back from the brink of death. We have trained, cried and laughed together. We fought Command - the most dangerous alien to walk this earth. We died together. We returned from the dead together. We killed Command." A short laugh flew over my lips. "I mean, our love is even strong enough to expel evil from aliens."

Tears were developing in his eyes during my monologue, matching my own, and silently he put his other hand above my own, hugging my hand between both of his.

"I would have preferred to not experience the pain and the war, but I would never regret knowing you or having you in my life," I continued. "I haven't had a chance to process much of what has happened these past couple of weeks, but during that time I have never questioned you or our life together."

He lifted our pile of hands to his lips, angling it so that he could kiss my thumb.

"We are meant to be, Max," I emphasized with a tentative smile. "Even the cosmos tells us so."

He nodded, let go of my hand and brought his free hands to cradle my face. I grew silent as the sounds of the bowls and plates moving on the unstable tray between us reached my ears. The danger of the tray falling to the floor along with its china did not, however, stop Max from leaning over it and merging our lips together in the softest of kisses.

I melted into his lips, his freshly shaven skin making his lips seem even softer than usual, and put my arms around his shoulders.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled against my lips between kisses.

But there really wasn't anything to forgive. Max had been shouldering a lot lately; he had the right to break down too. Plus, it was not difficult to understand how he could have been offended by my thoughts, even though those thoughts hadn't been intended to be final or even spoken out loud.

It just showed how complicated one's relationship could be when there was a mental connection. Had Max and I been a regular couple, he had never had to listen to that line of reasoning and this argument had never occurred.

"We are both fairly emotional people," Max mused in response to my most recent line of thinking, putting the distance of a breath between our lips. His eyes twinkled with sheepish amusement. "We both have to try and not react to what the other one is thinking."

I nodded and leaned in to steal another kiss. A satisfied sigh escaped me before I whispered, "This is really difficult stuff, Max. Maybe we will never get used to it and maybe we just have to accept that. To be able to sort through all the information our minds are getting all the time - both from our own thinking and from the other's thinking - is not just close to impossible but tiring."

He agreed with a nod and I placed my much paler hands against his cheeks, resting the tip of my fingers against the sharpened edge of his jaw.

"And I could actually try and ask you about your thoughts before I reach my own conclusions," Max admitted, his chagrin making him look years younger.

I smiled at him encouragingly and murmured, "Yes. Can't object to that."

This made him chuckle and, with one sharp motion, he moved the tray between us to the side, removing any physical obstacles between us. In a fraction of a second, his lips were on mine, his body pressing me down into the mattress with a pleasant pressure.

Our quarrel had cleared the air, almost resetting and removing all the negativity that had built between us lately. It was almost too easy to fall into the comfort of each other.

Our romance never had the chance to be that of teenagers. We never had the puppy love, the innocent first love, the young love we were meant to have had at sixteen. Even at our own partial choosing, sex had been forced upon us by necessity to bind me more closely to Max in order to protect me against Sean. Our feelings for each other, albeit intense and true, were constantly denied and exposed to attempts of tainting. We did not only hide our feelings from the rest of the world, but also from ourselves.

Our relationship never had the chance to blossom slowly, develop from something tentative into something stable. We never had the chance to settle in and become comfortable. Never had the time to just enjoy each other.

Instead our love was painfully entwined with pain and obligations. From the start, there had been an urgency to become one, spurred on not only by our need to protect ourselves but also by the connection. The connection had provided us with security and shelter, but had also seemed to have had an agenda of its own, and the more used to it we got, the more we realized that it might actually be a separate force. A living thing.

But right now, with Max's lips slowly moving down the side of my neck, with his hands whispering across my body with a calmness almost foreign to us, the connection – whatever it might be and whatever plan it might have - seemed to have taken a step back. And with its undramatic retreat, we were able to relax into the process of making out. Of simply kissing and touching. No demands to take it further, to reach completion, to become one. Instead we had finally landed in _puppy love_ , rediscovering each other through different eyes.

With the pressing insistence of the connection simmering down, we were free to follow our own feelings and discover just how much we loved each other. Discover how much we loved each other even when the world wasn't breathing down our necks. How our love was not contingent upon our survival, but that it held its own truth and worth.

It was the most serene experience of my life. Even when we were only making out and touching, I found myself melting into him. Becoming one in a very non-physical manner.

Slowly, I floated my hands across every inch of his body and felt the energy his body emitted through the thin clothing he was wearing. My lips were burning from his affections, my hands trembled restlessly. I couldn't deny that my desire for him was still there, even in the throes of this more innocent interaction with him, even without the connection interfering.

But the difference was that we were content – _content_ – with doing nothing more. The kissing only paused to allow for hugs. Warm comforting hugs. When I could put my nose into the side of his neck and let my sense of smell saturate with his addictive scent. His fingers, creeping underneath my sweater at the small of my back, were warm.

We were both present, in a way we hadn't really been before. Because now it was only us. Our thoughts and feelings were even and calm, flowing beautifully between our minds and bodies. The bright white light of our bond enveloped us effortlessly and we were bathing in tranquil peace.

I got lost in his eyes over and over again, and explosive warmth filled my chest every time he smiled at me. I found myself crushing on him, like the teenager I really was. I found myself wondrous to have him so close, to have him love me, to have him as my boyfriend.

With everything we had gone through, shyness still besieged me, making me blush when he lightly caressed my warm cheek with his knuckles and told me how much he loved me – every part of me.

Being so close together, we had managed to lose one another. Even with the ability to hear each others' thoughts and feel each others feelings, we hadn't had the chance to fully get to know one another.

After what felt like hours of kissing and caressing, of loving and quietly chit chatting, we settled on our sides, facing each other and sharing occasionally soft kisses, our fingers continuously interlaced.

"Mom's funeral is in two days," he said then, completely out of the blue.

I stiffened momentarily, the announcement obviously making me think of the beautiful Diane; of Max's warm and loving mother. And of her tragic death.

"Okay," I said quietly, unsure of how to treat that piece of information.

His eyes, irises golden amber and pupils black as charcoal, looked down at a point somewhere below my collarbone, his fingers giving mine a squeeze as he mumbled, "Would you come with me? To the service?"

I was both puzzled and moved by him asking. To me, it was only natural that I would come along. I would never have thought of not being there with him. _For_ him. But simply by asking, he was displaying his need for me to be there with him, to hold him up, to console him, and I was touched that he didn't take it for granted that I would come. That he wanted to ask me.

"Of course," I said softly, cradling his cheek in my hand. His eyes came up to meet mine, a sheen of wetness across them as I continued, "Of course I'll come." I tightened my grip on his hand. "I would never leave you alone at a time like that."

My voice thickening, I dropped my eyes in the search for composure, "She meant a lot to me too. I want to say goodbye." My voice broke at that last word, my eyes rapidly filling with tears. The first tear quietly rolled down my cheek as I looked up to meet his sad and grateful gaze.

"Thank you," he whispered. His words were mushy, thickened by his restrained tears, and without a second thought I wrapped my arm around him and pulled him close.

He clung to me tightly, accepting my hug and support with all of his might. We still had a lot of grieving to do. A lot of things to work through. But to just be there for each other, without the pressures of the outside world, was a very good – and vital – start.


	7. SIX

_Child of Dreams - Thank you :D_  
 _"Guest" - Thank you so so sooo much for your comments! It means a lot!_

* * *

 **SIX**

Due to the pregnancy – and everything that came along with it – I had avoided any more interactions with Max's grandfather. I knew that he was still in the house, I could hear him on occasion, his voice sporadically traveling up the stairs from the first floor to the second.

I had gotten accustomed to that voice and I loved the sound of it. It spoke to something inside of me the same way that Max's did. It was a voice of fundamental trust, without even knowing him.

Hence, when Max's grandfather – George Evans – requested a meeting, I was not the one to object. I was looking forward to hearing his story, to take part of the possible knowledge he possessed. It was instead Max that objected. Not straight out. Not loudly. But he was hesitant.

From his mind, I could discern that Max's hesitance partly stemmed from his fear of my overall mental health possibly deteriorating if I were dragged back into the deepest parts of the alien world, but also Max's disappointment with his grandfather. Working with small pieces of information, I could figure out that Max had been very close to his grandfather, and thus George leaving – faking his own death – was a monumental betrayal to Max.

Max also felt betrayed by his father, who had recently admitted to knowing that his father George had not in fact been dead, but had been in hiding.

Last night, after Max had asked me to come with him to his mother's funeral, we had talked for a long time about his mother. He had told me tales of his childhood, of what she was like as a mother from a son's perspective, and we had gradually, albeit cautiously, brushed the grief he had yet to deal with. The tragedy of losing his mother, mixed with the horrific events of me losing my own mother, had broken our composure on more than one occasion, but we had never lost it completely. Both of us being serious control freaks, letting go was just not our thing. Nevertheless, being in the comfort and safety of each other's company that evening had brought us the closest to processing what had happened as of yet.

Our conversation, before we had gotten ready for bed and fallen asleep wrapped up in each other, had led us to Max's grandfather. But compared to the subject of Diane, it was a lot more difficult for Max to speak of George. Max did, however, paint me a fairly good picture of what kind of grandfather George had been.

He had been the attentive grandfather, the one who always listens to what you have to say, even when it's sometimes only childish gibberish and nonsensical theories. He had been the strong grandfather, the one that you could always trust to protect you no matter what. He had been the healing grandfather, in every meaning of the word, fixing scrapes and bruises, but also wiping away your tears. He had been the consoling grandfather, the one who you would cry your heart out to, who would hug you tight while doing so. He had been the grandfather with all the stories, who narrated long fairytales at bedtime. He had been the encouraging grandfather, the one that gave praise and topped up one's self esteem.

He had been the grandfather Max and Isabel never thought would leave. The stable rock in their lives. A replacement for their much colder and more aloof father.

Which only made the betrayal of George Evans' (voluntary) absence that much more cutting.

I carried that sting with me, resonating inside of me – a ghost of Max's feelings - when we positioned ourselves on the large dark brown leather couch in the living room. Max's thigh was burning with heat as he pressed it against the side of my own, sitting so close that he was almost in my lap. His grip on my hand was slightly damp. He felt tight and apprehensive.

The walls of the room were glimmering, as if they had been sprinkled with fairy dust. Rather instinctively, Max answered my unspoken question about the odd appearance of the walls by telling me that it was soundproofing. Whatever George Evans wanted to tell us, the physical barrier of regular walls was not enough.

The man in question was standing, naturally signaling a role of authority with his expectant audience seated around him. Contrary to his authoritative stance, there was nothing intimidating about Max's grandfather. His body was straight, looking very strong for his age, and there was not a single tremor or sign of age-related weakness. His gaze steady, he was looking straight at Max and me, succeeding in making his gaze neither staring nor uncomfortable. Despite this, it was still unusual to have someone (other than Max) look at me that closely, so I soon dropped my gaze, busying myself with the other occupants in the room.

Michael and Philip were there. Isabel and Alex. They were to be expected. But I was a bit surprised to see Maria there, along with her mother and my father. Somewhere along the way they had not only been included in this weird alien mixed group, but also entrusted with information secret enough to require magical soundproofing.

There was a smaller sofa to my left, occupied by Maria and Michael. They were seated close (although not as close as Max was to me) and for a second I was mystified by the colors of their auras, meshing together. Amongst their almost constant bickering, something beautiful was growing between them. They were getting closer every day and even though I could see visible (positive) changes in my best friend, the changes their relationship did to Michael was even more fascinating. Suddenly Michael was smiling more. He seemed more relaxed and friendlier. Almost like he had been lost before and now (finally) found a place in the world.

My father and Maria's mother were seated in separate armchairs, positioned next to each other. Amy was leaning over the cushioned armrest, speaking with dad in hushed tones. They looked very comfortable with each other, like long-time confidants. As two out of three parents in this room, being the only human parents, I was relieved that they were close. They had always had a great relationship, considering that Maria and I had been friends for so long, but knowing what they knew, and having experienced what they had experienced, had brought their friendship to a whole new level. I was happy that they had each other.

Isabel looked closed off. She was on a pin chair, probably borrowed from the kitchen, her arms crossed tightly and defensively across her chest. That expression of distance was equally visible in the strained line of her mouth and in how she was staring, unblinkingly and provocatively, at her grandfather. Her body language was demanding answers according to a very clear non-bullshit policy.

Not even Alex's hand on her shoulder seemed to be able to loosen her up. I could see, from the colors of Alex's aura, that he was feeding energy into Isabel attempting to calm her down with his emphatic ability. But Isabel was too closed off. Her aura was filled with stormy darkened colors; the darkest marine blue, the darkest navy green, the darkest blood red. I was impressed with Alex for having the courage to stand so close to Isabel while she was in such an emotional state.

Philip was barely noticeable. He had taken a position in the background, behind his father, leaning with his back against the wall. His facial expression was blank, his arms folded across his chest similar to his daughter, while lacking in defensive tightness. For all intents and purposes, he looked bored, like this was a regular meeting at his job, a meeting he just wanted to get out of.

"If I could have your attention, please," George said politely, causing the low buzz from the conversation between Amy and my dad to quiet down.

Instead of our attention, he got our rapt focus. Like kids at school, when a particularly exciting guest would come to visit to tell a story, I think I spoke for everyone there (even Isabel and Philip) when I say that we were all on the edges of our seats waiting for whatever George was about to tell us.

"Thank you," he said, smiling softly. "I'm glad to finally be here with you; it's been too long."

I couldn't help but glance at Isabel, to see her reaction in response to George's words, and was not surprised to see the red in her aura became more dominant. Her grandfather was already pissing her off.

As Alex's fingers subtly tightened around Isabel's shoulder, George continued, "I know that both Dresden and my son have informed you of the history of the planet Antar and the Antarians, but the information they possess does not go very far back. It's time that you hear the whole story, information that very few individuals are in the possession of."

Max was tense next to me. In instinctive response, I tensed as well.

"Antar is a very old civilization. Older than the human race. You have heard of the legend of parims, how the essence of one parim was divided up and incorporated into human beings to keep the pure energy alive. You have heard how the energy was only successfully assimilated into female human beings and how the successful incorporation of parim energy into the human genome resulted in gaeas." He paused, looking at each person in the room, one at the time, tracing the circle of listeners.

The room was silent. I could hear the rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock and Max's thin breathing next to me. My own hot blood was throbbing past my ears.

"This is the story I told James Dresden in 2003," he continued. "But I was forced to leave some details out. Out of precaution."

"What details?" Isabel asked impatiently. Looking at her, it was impossible to ignore the angry sparks exploding throughout her aura. Glancing at George, wanting to read his expression, I knew that he could see it too. "What did you leave out?"

But George chose to not feed into his granddaughter's hostility, his expression softening in sympathy. "The Antarian who sacrifice himself for his essence to become a part of homo sapiens was one out of a group of parims."

"A group?!" The question flew out of me in surprise before I could stop it. When George met my eyes with an open expression on his face, I haltingly added, "There were more than one? We have been told that parims were extremely rare."

I looked at Max, met his confused eyes, and wondered silently if we might not be as special as had been insinuated.

"This is what everyone has been lead to believe," George explained, attracting my attention again. "The knowledge of parims was conveniently forgotten in order for the mission to be successful."

"What mission?" Michael asked.

"Several millennia ago, Antarians consisted of only parims. They were life forms of energy without a physical form."

I licked my lips slowly, becoming entranced by the elderly man's tale.

"They were immortal; their energies similar to the hypothetical concept of the Earthen souls. Occasionally, new energy fields were created, but energies rarely died. Their only threat of death was due to darkness."

"In English, please..?" Maria asked, her voice drenched with confusion.

Even with the questions being fired around me, I kept my eyes on George the entire time, not only fascinated by his words but also by the beauty of his aura. How it was kept completely regulated, not changing the least while remaining even in color distribution.

"If they let darkness in - the malevolence - they were defiled. Tainted. It became like a sickness, slowly making them sicker, gradually killing them. The light that was them and their consciousness could fight off any darkness in the universe, but if they let it inside, let it become part of them, it would consume them. Destroy them from the inside."

I thought of Command and how our energy had seemed to destroy him from the inside.

"But the darkness still managed to nestle itself into some of the parims. It is unknown if those first parims made a conscious and willing decision to _let_ the darkness in or if it forced itself past their barriers. Despite the reason, in small amounts, the darkness started changing the parims rather than killing them. The darkness gave them a physical form, something that some of the parims considered a favorable development. See, some of the parims had become weary of each other. Not many new parims were created, since the creation was spontaneous and infrequent. Meanwhile, parims had observed how other organisms in the universe created offspring and communities. Something they were unable to do without a physical form. Having lived for millennia as energy, they were ready to experience something else."

"Hang on," I interrupted. "So if parims needed darkness to acquire a physical form, that would mean that all parims with a body actually have darkness inside of them. That would mean that there are no pure parims left."

Which would be the complete opposite of what we had been told.

"You have a very valid point, Liz," George said, looking almost pleased by me asking. "But this happened thousands of years ago. A lot happened in the years to follow. The darkness _did_ change the playing field though. Only a small number of parims regained their purity, with their physical forms intact, while the majority of the parim population became what we would call the modern Antarian. Unfortunately, some parims acquired too much darkness and their need to not only grow in numbers but also to become powerful had them create the first political system of Antar."

"The monarchy," Max said quietly.

The silence of the room was heavy enough for Max's soft voice to be heard very clearly.

"Yes," George conceded. "The monarchic rule is what Antarians know to be the start of their people. Everything that happened before then was forgotten."

"This means that every Antarian originated from parims," Alex mused, surprised.

"Exactly," George concurred, looking rather pleased with his audience.

"Let me get this straight," Amy interrupted. "Most of your people are," she lifted her hands to make air quotes, "'normal Antarians', but some are from the monarchy. But there are also some parims left still. Or did they all vanish in the end?"

"Almost," George answered. "The pure parims - the ones that had managed to vanquish the effects of the small pieces of darkness they had invited into their life forms in order to gain physical form - retreated. They hid away from the Antarians, overwhelmed by the civilization and the signs of evil that was fostering within the new population. Their existence became a myth. A legend, at best. A distant memory. But just like most organisms, they had a will to survive. They quickly realized that their physical form had made them mortal, and being few in numbers they knew that they would very soon die out."

"Couldn't they make new ones?" Maria asked, blushing when everyone turned to look at her. "I mean, they had bodies now. They could just…" She tripped over her words. "Or were they asexual? Sterile?"

Michael looked ready to break out in laughter next to his girlfriend, and Maria gave him an acidic glare before George stopped any laughter from erupting by saying, "You are not too far off, Maria. The parims suffered severe difficulties in reproducing."

My heart dropped. It dropped like an ice cold stone, falling quickly into my uterus, shredding it to pieces and pulling my dead fetus along with it. I barely noticed as Max squeezed my hand - his eyes worriedly fixed on the side of my face - because my free hand was already pressing against my lower abdomen, my thoughts nowhere close to the present meeting.

 _The parims suffered severe difficulties in reproducing._

"Their gene pool was small," George continued. With my attention diverted, his voice sounded far away. "And they didn't want to mix with regular Antarians, with the risk of them losing the purity and inviting more darkness into their genes. The few number of progenies born were, in nine cases out of ten, males. The few females that were born rarely survived. This further complicated reproduction; there being almost no females around."

Distractedly, sorrow burrowing deeply into my soul, I saw Amy lean forward in her seat and I vaguely heard her ask, "What did they do? Did they die out?"

I felt Maria's eyes on me at her mother's question. Michael and Isabel were also looking at Max and I. We had been called parims. We were alive. How was that possible if they had all died out? But Amy had asked something similar just a minute ago, and George had answered 'Almost' to that question then.

"It's okay, Liz," George said, pulling me harshly back to the conversation at hand, and everyone that was not already looking at me did then. His assurance brought me back to reality with something akin to a slap in the face. "We'll discuss that privately later. Don't worry about it."

My heart missed a beat, cold sweat broke out all over my body and my fingers tightened painfully around Max's.

 _What does he know?_ I asked Max desperately.

 _I have no idea_ , Max answered. Stunned.

I turned to look at my boyfriend, trying to figure out if he was telling me the truth. My trust in his words had been shaken by him keeping my own pregnancy secret from me. But there was nothing in his eyes to make me second-guess his words this time.

Looking back at the circle of listeners, I caught sight of Maria's pale face. Her eyes were flickering to the hand on my abdomen and I could only assume that her thoughts had mimicked my own.

"They did not die out," George said, reverting to answering the previous question as though his comment to me had never happened. "Their theory was that _the environment_ \- the continued destruction of Antar and the tainting of Antarians - was negatively influencing their ability to procreate. A long way back, they had discovered Earth and homo sapiens; a species quite similar to their own, and thus they decided that they would go into hiding on the planet Earth. This was a long time before the Blood War which would later terrorize Antar, but conditions on Antar were already disturbed. The conditions were getting worse and the Antarians were suffering. Some pure parims remained on Antar and it's from one of those remaining parims that we got the essence to create gaeas, a result of the backup plan you already heard of."

"Was their theory correct?" Isabel asked. "About the environment being the cause of their infertility?"

"Probably not. But it was not until recently that they realized that the change of environment was not the main problem." George smiled good-naturedly. "I'll get to that."

My mind was still distracted by my dead daughter inside my womb, making me listen to Max's grandfather with only one ear.

"The parims that escaped Antar - let's call them Elders - in an attempt to hide away and improve their fertility, arrived on Earth in the early 1500 B.C."

"Whoa, whoa," Maria interrupted. "They lived here?"

George nodded, slightly amused. "Yes. They have lived side by side with humans to this very day."

Max's shock was instantaneous, pulling me out of my grief-ridden daze. "Until this day? You mean, there are more parims here? Right now?"

George continued to nod. "Why, yes. There are not that many of them, but yes, they are here. Let me explain."

Max was trembling next to me. I guess his grandfather had already told him some things, but he had left out that piece of information to be announced at this meeting.

"Navajo Indians called them Anasazi, the term meaning something along the lines of _ancient enemies_."

 _Anasazi._

I felt the blood drain from my face. Anasazi. I knew about that. My mother had talked about them. She had, for as long as I had known her, shown an almost annoying interest in Indians - in the Anasazis particularly. Was there a reason? Was it only an odd coincidence? Did she know about this? Had George told her? Or had she figured it out?

"At first, the Elders were able to use their abilities and their ancient knowledge rather freely. They built apartment complexes out of stone, were experts at farming and had a keen understanding of astronomy."

Chaco Canyon. My mom had shown me pictures of that place a long time ago. Pictures of apartments carved into the stone wall. I remember mom telling me that the people living there had one day mysteriously vanished and up until this day no one knew what had happened to them.

Unaware of my thought process, George continued his tale, "The Elders had chosen New Mexico as their place of residency, only because the environment was similar to that of Antar. Which obviously gave them the knowledge of how to survive in a dry and waterless place like that. But their abilities would not go undetected forever. Mainly, it was their ability to live without access to a lot of water made human beings suspicious and the Anasazi realized that they had to disappear."

"Wait," Isabel interrupted. "What happened until they had to disappear? Were they able to breed? Or were they just surviving?"

"Unfortunately, their misfortunes at procreation continued to plague them even on Earth. They were diminishing in numbers." He cleared his throat. "I should add that the workings of the original parims on Earth not only attracted the attention of the Earthlings, but also that of Antarians. This lead to a second fleet from Antar arriving on Earth at the end of the 13th century. The ship was loaded with military Antarians and their goal was to find out everything they could about the parims and, if needed, annihilate them." He took a deep breath. "The newcomers from Antar lived with the Anasazi - the parims - for awhile, pretending to be their allies and friends, until they one day began to prey upon the Anasazi, before attacking them."

A deep sadness befell him and for the first time since meeting him, the colors of his aura changed. Grew duller and melancholic.

"It was a massacre, lasting for a month. The Anasazi had some luck at first, using their gifts and goodness to convert and - sometimes - destroy the newcomers. But they were too few and the Antarians were winning. The parims were forced up into the cliffs, trying to hide." He shook his head slowly, gaze unseeing, thoughts miles away. "There was so much blood. Almost all the young ones were killed, and of course they were not many to start with. The young ones had yet to learn how to use their abilities. They were completely defenseless. The survivors spread into all corners of the world, disappearing in the human population. The Antarian military returned to Antar, unaware that some parims had escaped their extermination. The surviving parims quietly resigned to not being able to produce new parims and decided to become the watchmen of Earth, giving them a purpose until they would all die. They focused on doing good for human beings, traveling in the shadows of every day life of the humans, offering light and goodness. Parims' lifespans are longer than that of a human being, hence why they call themselves _Elders_ , but they cannot live forever. They accepted that the knowledge of parims and the knowledge of the true origins of the Antarian civilization would die with them."

George paused, everyone hanging on his every word, until Michael cleared his throat. "But something changed, right? Something must have changed?"

Without preamble, George continued, "In 1947, Antarians arrived yet again on Earth. It was the first delivery of Antarians on Earth since the Antarian military at the end of the 13th century. Naturally, the Elders were hesitant to make themselves known, seeing what had happened last time and how they had been betrayed by their own people. But by merely observing from the shadows, they realized that the ships were filled with children. Not an adult in sight. Plus, one of the ships crashed and immediate action was needed. The Elders helped bury the fatalities, and assisted in hiding the truth of the crew of the crashed ship from humans, until they retreated back into the shadows. They kept on observing, needing to make sure that the human beings were safe from this latest shipment of Antarians. That's how they discovered me." He noticeable straightened, looking both modest and proud. "And without me knowing, they observed and watched over me, finding my energy interesting."

"Are you a parim?" Amy asked straight out.

George shook his head. "No. But according to the Elders, I'm different. Which is probably why they eventually decided to entrust me with their knowledge and their secrets. At that point," he scrunched his eyes in thought, "that would be around the mid 50's - the Elders who were still residing in New Mexico were living amongst Indians, on a reservation. For all intents and purposes, they were Indians, seamlessly blending with the human population."

George took a deep breath and added, "Being a dying race, they saw their chance for someone else to learn their secrets and carrying them on forward. My task was to find individuals to entrust the knowledge with. The knowledge of the true purpose of parims and their hope to someday eradicate darkness once again."

"They have their job set out for them with homo sapiens," Michael huffed. "Not the most peaceful race."

"True," George agreed. "But the Elders - and the parims before them - saw something in human beings that they trusted. Made them want to move to Earth and restart their lives here."

"So…" I said softly, my quiet voice effectively attracting everyone's attention. "Max was born a parim." I cleared my throat. "That's what we have been told at least."

I left the words hanging in the air around me for a second, and George's encouraging nod spurred me to continue. "How is that possible?" I glanced at Philip, unsure if I was going to step on any toes by saying, "Is Max adopted? Does he come from the Elders? Am _I_ adopted?"

 _Am I not human?_ I filled in silently.

Philip did not bat an eye at my insinuation.

"You two," George said, "are the revelation."

When George didn't clarify, Max and I looked at each other in one fluid movement and said in unison, "Huh?"

George smiled sympathetically. "Let me explain." He took a deep breath. "Since the Elders approached me when I was but a youngster, I've spent a lot of time with them. They have not merely told me the history of the Antarians - which I have told you just now - but also the intricate function of abilities, about their legends, about their way of living, their way to communicate without words." He winked. "To mention but a few of their…um….skills."

"Continue," Max pressed.

"Considering our close relationship, it was only natural for me to tell them about the birth of my grandson." George looked straight at Max. I could feel the love George was emitting through that look all the way through the connection. In wonderment, I looked between my boyfriend and his grandfather, and I could feel Max softening. Forgiving. Opening up to finding out more.

"It was especially instinctive for me to consult them about Max's aura. About my suspicions of you being a parim - an original Antarian."

I felt the frustration acutely. "But how is that possible? If Max's mother is human - not even a gaea - and Max's father is a 'modern Antarian', as you call it. How can Max be a parim?"

"That," George mused, "is still a bit unclear. For now, the Elders are referring to it as 'nature will find a way'."

The collective silence of the group was enough to spur George on to explain further, "During all of these thousands of thousands of years, the Elders have believed it to be the environment that had further hindered their means of producing viable offspring, but they have obviously also been aware of the problem of the gradually diminishing gene pool. Even with parims, inbreeding is not good. But with such a small population, and fearing the tainting of their purity by inviting modern Antarians into their gene pool, they had run out of options. They were - as you humans say - caught between a rock and a hard place."

George moved his gaze around the small group. "Imagine their surprise when parims were created without their involvement. Seemingly out of the blue. Obviously, it gave them hope that parims will survive, that their race had evolved and would survive no matter what."

 _But how?_ I wanted to scream. George Evans was giving us so many answers, to the point that I needed many more. I needed the full explanation this time. His knowledge made me greedy for more.

A multitude of thoughts and questions were running through my head, and they all came down to: _How was it that Max and I had been born as parims?_

George continued, "They put me in charge of watching over Max, and later also over Liz when she was born. They didn't know if Max and Liz were the only parims born under these circumstances, but the fact that there suddenly were two new parims, even during the same year, gave them hope that there were more on Earth. As a result, the Elders set out to scour Earth for unusual humans, starting with every gaea and then moving on to the rest of the population."

I had stopped breathing. Max found the single-worded question I couldn't voice, "And…?"

"They can see auras, just like you and Liz. Just like your father and I. That made their work a bit easier, but it's still a monumental task and it keeps them occupied to this day."

"Have they found any more?" Isabel pushed.

George paused, before announcing that, "Yes, yes they did."

All air left me and I slowly sat back in the couch, my back landing against the soft back of the sofa.

This was big. This was huge. We were not alone.

"Can they do what Liz and I can do?" Max asked. His voice sounded flat and strained.

"So far, they are singular individuals. And it seems as if they, without a connection, don't display the same abilities, no. The theory is that two parims have to find each other and form a connection for them to be anywhere close to as powerful as you two."

"Are they all humans?" Max continued asking.

"Yes," George answered.

"Which means that they don't have any abilities," Alex pondered out loud.

"Not that they know of, no," George agreed.

"And without abilities, they can't form a connection even if they were to meet another parim," Isabel concluded.

George hesitated. "That is our suspicion as well. But we have yet to try it. These individuals have not been approached or informed in any way. The Elders do not, at this point, wish to force anyone into a life of controlling and diminishing evil against their will. Keeping evil in check is essentially the role of the parim."

"Right," Max mumbled, sinking back in his seat, his shoulder coming to rest pressed up against mine.

I had been deflated earlier due to bafflement and surprise. The same had happened to Max, but instead due to disappointment. I had no troubles understanding him. For a second, we had both been given the hope that not all responsibility of the world was resting on us, that we could share it with others like us, but it was taken away from us faster than a speeding bullet.

We were back to being rare.

Which I was starting to hate.

"The reason I left you all - and I've told Isabel and Max this already," George said seriously, "was to protect the secret and thus protect what Max and Liz could become. My son has always been better than me at hiding his emotions," George winked at Philip, whose responding stone face was almost laughable considering what George had pointed out, "and I knew that I could trust him to work on the inside, under Command, without revealing who Max and Liz were. This was the only way to keep them safe. Keeping them out in the open. We always knew that it would be dangerous, but we did not have any other options. We _had to_ wait for Max and Liz to mature and become stronger before we could let them be together. The Elders had, namely, a feeling that the energy between Max and Liz would become visible were they to connect. Something they had already heard of when Max and Liz connected as children."

George turned to Max again. "I hope you can understand, son, that all this time we were looking out for you. Your father, especially. I know that you have had your struggles with your father, but he loves you deeply and has always fought to protect you. There are things that have been done which you might not understand, but hopefully we'll have a good answer for you once the questions arise."

Max's breathing was shallow and strained. From being inside his mind, I knew that he was struggling to not break down, even if nothing was visible on the outside. Not even in his aura.

"The Elders saw a chance to remove Command and his malice from Earth, the planet they had grown to love, and they took it. Through me, they guided my son, Dresden and other good people, to keep Max and Liz safe."

"Because we are your weapon," Max whispered. The pain in his voice burrowed into my heart and I shuddered.

"No," George said, bordering on vehemently. "Of course not. You are our saving grace. Our hope. Our future. This has been a horrible task to ask of you and there are still more hardships to come, but we need to do this in order for you to live out the rest of your lives peacefully."

"No pain, no gain," Michael inserted. He wasn't being sarcastic, rather stating the familiar figure of speech with saddened hopelessness.

I looked at Michael, feeling comforted that he seemed to understand our situation and our unfortunate role in this whole thing. When earlier he had seemed more resentful towards us, at least towards Max, maybe he was finally realizing that he was better off than us after all.

 _No pain, no gain_ , my thoughts whispered and felt Max's fingers squeeze my hand. _No pain, no gain._


	8. SEVEN

_"Guest" - Thank you so much for your feedback! Here's some more information…  
Speechymol - You're probably right. Max and Liz seem to be constantly on the brink of a mental breakdown. It's not really over yet, I'm afraid, but hopefully soon… Thank you so much for the feedback!_

 ** _I'm sorry for this update taking so long. I had some (positive) things happen to me on a personal level and it's been distracting._**

 _ **This picks up straight after the Prelude. So if you have forgotten what the prelude was about, take a second to skim through the prelude. Thank you for reading!**_

* * *

 **SEVEN**

That night, after the information overload provided by Max's grandfather, I miscarried the baby.

The cramping was horrible and I would not let Max remove the pain. I wanted to _feel_ my baby leave my body. It was as if the emotional pain of my grief had masked the physical pain of the contractions earlier, but as I stood there in the shower, the water pelting down on my head and my shaking shoulders, further down my body, the cramps became more noticeable. Starting as menstrual cramps, they soon escalated and become more painful than I had ever felt during any previous period.

He asked me repeatedly for my permission for him to relieve me of the pain, or to at least take the edge off. But even when my legs wouldn't hold me up any longer, and his strong arms around my waist supported my descent to the shower floor, I refused his help.

I had no idea how long it would last. Had no idea how long a process of miscarriage could take. But I was determined to go through it consciously feeling every painful twinge escalate into full-blown contractions.

He sat down next to me, pulled my straining body between his legs and wrapped his arms around the shell that was me. The water remained warm as it cascaded down our bodies while he gently rocked us side to side, the insides of his thighs pressing tenderly up against the outsides of mine, his chest supporting my bent and quaking back.

Through heavy water droplets, dripping from my eyelashes, I watched the blood mix with the shower water and swirl down the drain. With every cramp, there was a more distinct red color, the color dimming in between contractions while our baby went down the drain.

Large dark clots of coagulated blood would stop at the top of the metal strainer of the drain, collecting there as a morbid sign of massacre. My eyes would fix on that, wondering which part of the clots contained the fetus. I considered leaning forward, pressing on the clots with my finger to dissolve the clots and make the clumps small enough to go through the strainer of the drain, to not have to look at them anymore, but I never worked up the strength to do so.

His attention was also on the blood going down the drain, but for somewhat different reasons. His main focus of concern was me and my health. The baby, from his viewpoint, was already dead. He had already let go. To him, it was more important to take care of me. Thus, his interest in the blood was as means of recording how much blood I lost and when it seemed to lessen.

I knew that it took everything in him to refrain from giving me any kind of relief. His hands, brushing repeatedly over my goose bumped arms, were itching to send me a - possibly small - burst of healing energy. Seeing me in pain was ripping him apart. Especially since he knew that he had the power to remove the pain.

But even if he had been able to fix me physically, he could do very little to heal my emotional state right now.

When the bleeding subsided, he carefully disentangled his body from mine, and went to retrieve a towel. During the short period of time that he was gone, I said goodbye to the fetus and embarked on the road of trying to rationalize myself out of this painful situation. I needed to tell myself that it was for the best. That it was too early, too complicated, too dangerous, for Max and I to become parents. That the miscarriage was somehow meant to be. That this child was never meant to be ours. That we were never meant to watch it grow up and be her parents.

The process of rationalization made it hurt even more. Made me cry even harder. And when Max returned and turned the shower off, he failed to stop the tears with the towel. My tears kept wetting my flushed cheeks, my sobs silent and hollow.

Wrapped in the soft warm towel, he jostled me into his arms and carried me back into the bedroom. He left the towel around my lower body as he tucked me into bed, the sheets now clean and white again (probably due to his alien touch), the towel beneath my body aimed at collecting any blood were I to bleed more.

I willingly curled into his inviting arms when he came to lie down next to me and he hugged me tightly to his body, threading his fingers through my wet hair - drying it with his energy. The cramps kept me awake until the early morning hours. I looked at Max's face the entire time, watched him drift off to sleep only to briefly wake up to check how I was doing, to fall asleep again a minute later. It was a restless night and Max was really worried about me, making him repeatedly wake up even though exhaustion was beckoning.

An emptiness settled over my body once the cramps eased and eventually disappeared. I felt ridiculous in a way - the baby had been dead for several days already - but to finally go through the process of miscarrying left a large aching hole of loneliness in the center of my body, where my baby should have been. Like a slow insidious disease, it started to grow - slowly devouring me.

I didn't know what to do. How to make it better. I just wanted the feeling to end. Barely an hour later, I nudged Max, waking him up. He startled to consciousness with fear and concern blazing in his eyes.

"What's wrong?" he asked, voice thick with insufficient sleep. "Are you okay?"

Quickly, his hand moved to my lower abdomen and I felt the natural heat from his skin against the skin over my uterus.

"I'm fine," I said, hastily, needing to move on, needing distraction. The panic inside of me was growing. "I need to talk to your grandfather."

Max frowned. "My grandfather?"

I nodded resolutely. "Now."

Max's frown grew deeper as he parroted, "Now?"

I watched his eyes flicker to a point above my shoulder, in the direction of the clock on the nightstand. It was still early. Nowhere close to normal civil conversation hours.

"He knows more about us." My chest felt strained, making it difficult to talk. "He said that he would talk to us privately."

"Yeah," Max said slowly. He was watching me closely now, the tendrils of sleep having completely abandoned his facial features, his gaze alert and focused.

He could feel the panic inside of me - was probably bulldozed by it - but instead of reacting with equal panic and fear, he slowed down and became extremely cautious.

"Should I go and get him?" he asked, eyes scanning my face closely, already knowing my answer.

The panic was restricting my throat and I tried to swallow the onslaught of that powerful emotion while nodding.

He looked at me quietly for two seconds, before he said, "Then you need to calm down."

The panic fluttered in my chest, threatening to take over.

He inched closer, his nose almost close enough to brush mine. "You need to breathe."

It was a panic attack. It was pressing down on my chest and stopping me from pulling in air. It was spreading out into my hands like sharp needles. It was making my heart fibrillate with extra beats of fear.

My body twisted with discomfort, and I tried not to let him see how poorly I was. I would be fine once he went and got his grandfather.

But I wasn't stupid. I could see in his eyes that there was no way he was leaving me like this. Not even to quickly fetch his grandfather.

I never consciously noticed grabbing his hand, but I had, and he read it as a signal to permit him to help me.

Without a second of delay, he pressed his free hand against my upper chest, and while the heat spread into my contracting intercostal muscles, I instantly felt the pressure ease off. Deeply, I pulled air into my starving lungs and brought my body back on track.

My breathing was shallow and winded as he leaned his forehead against mine. "We have to work on those panic attacks of yours," he whispered and his worry grated painfully into my heart.

I didn't want to worry him. Didn't want to cause him pain.

"I'm gonna get Grandpa, okay?" he whispered and leaned in for a soft kiss.

A tear rolled down my cheek at the tender contact, and I managed a small smile, my voice coming out all distorted with emotions, "Thank you."

He was so sweet. So caring. I never knew that this was the real Max behind the annoying and narcissistic jock persona he had hid behind at school. I never would have guessed.

Reading my thoughts, a small smile twitched in the corners of his mouth and he leaned in for another kiss before promising, "I'll be right back."

My eyes tracked his departure out of the room, but I was out of bed as soon as he closed the door behind him. I stood naked, next to the bed, and looked down at the small stain of blood in the center of the towel where I had laid.

The last remnants of my miscarriage.

Swallowing back the acid from my stomach making a somersault, I bundled the towel up and pushed it into hiding beneath the bed. Pulling the top sheet from the bed and wrapping it around my body, I quickly padded towards the closest bathroom. There the sheet dropped at my feet while I wetted toilet paper under the tap to use the dissolving paper strips to wipe away the worst of the blood from the insides of my thighs. The water from the soaked pieces of toilet paper was cold as it ran down the inner sides of my legs, resulting in me using wads of dry paper to dry my legs off just seconds after.

When done, I hurried back to the bedroom, found some underwear, a pair of sweatpants and a top, and got dressed.

I was tucking my hair behind my ears, out of breath, when George and Max walked through the door.

Max gave me a look that I wouldn't have been able to decipher had I not had an insight into his mind. He didn't like that I had been running around, stressing, so soon after the miscarriage. He would have preferred me to just put some clothes on and he would have helped me with the blood later.

I narrowed my eyes at him in response, appreciating his concern, but not applauding his berating.

Max almost rolled his eyes at me, a motion so appropriate for his age that my heart immediately warmed and I found myself holding back a smile in the midst of the seriousness of the situation. My emotions were taking a ride on a rollercoaster.

"Good morning, Liz," George said, interrupting the silent communication between Max and I.

I looked at the elderly man that I had forced out of bed at this ungodly hour and the smile I had hold back merely a second ago helped to make the softer smile on my face right now more genuine.

"Good morning," I said, sheepishly. "I'm so sorry for waking you up like-"

His left hand literally waved my apologies away. "That's absolutely no problem. I was already awake."

I frowned. "You-?"

He smiled at me and smoothly wiggled out of the start of my request for clarification. "I understand you have some questions for me."

I cleared my throat and straightened in my crosslegged position on the bed. "Yes."

Max had retrieved his desk chair and was positioning it next to the bed in the same moment that George Evans nodded his head in agreement.

"Take a seat, Grandpa," Max invited and I watched George look at his grandson and offer him a grateful half-smile. A half-smile that was very similar to the one that sometimes revealed itself on Max's face.

I found it fascinating how I could see more similarities between George and Max than between Max and his father, Philip. Not in physical appearance (after all, both George and Philip were wearing a human suit that they had created themselves, so genes had probably very little to do with their appearance), but in mannerism and personality.

"Thank you, Max," George said and sat down.

Max sat down next to me, reaching for one of my hands resting on my lap and lacing our fingers together. His side pressed warmly against mine and I squeezed his hand in search of support.

"Ask me anything," George invited, without a trace of apprehension or judgement. It actually sounded as if he might answer just about anything I might throw at him.

"Okay." I shifted slightly, straightening again and brushed at my hair with my free hand. "Okay." Max's fingers squeezed mine. "During the meeting earlier, you kinda hinted that you wanted to talk to us privately about something. And it kinda felt like you knew something about us and…" I stuttered, lost my line of thought, lost my words.

"Yes," George answered calmly and encouraging, eyes warm and sympathetic. "I know that you were with child and I know that you recently lost it."

I thought I was over it by now. I honestly, foolishly, thought so. That the night of bleeding had closed that chapter for me. That it had given me an abrupt and final closure. But to hear someone - other than Max - speak of something so private and tragic was like a knife twisting in my abdomen.

George looked sad when I traced the expression in his eyes. "I know that your baby was dead when I met you and I can see now that in the time since we last spoke, you have physically lost the fetus."

With a dry mouth, I croaked, "You can see it on me."

"I have read auras for a long time, Liz," George said kindly.

I swallowed dryly. "Does Philip know too?"

"I haven't spoken with him about it," George answered, "But he probably knows that something is not quite right."

For some reason, this embarrassed me. That Max's father knew of our secret. The realization that Philip knew about it was more uncomfortable than Max's grandfather knowing about it.

"But there's something else bothering you," George continued sensitively. "The loss of your child has affected you deeply, but," he frowned, "there's something else that is troubling you more."

I didn't know what he meant. I mirrored his frown to indicate my own incomprehension of what he might be searching for. I was upset about the miscarriage. It had turned my whole world upside down. What else could there be? The death of my mother? The death of Diane? My current chaotic life situation?

I mentally shook my head in negative at the suggestions. No. No, neither of those things were at the front of my mind.

While I was searching my mind for answers, I felt George's eyes on me as he waited in silence for an answer. I was so aware of his presence that I didn't even startle when he reached out and covered the joined hands of Max and I with his own large one.

"My guess is," he started softly, as if speaking to a frightened animal, "that you worry about what this miscarriage might mean for Max and your future."

My frown grew deeper, almost giving me a headache. No. No. I was very certain that the wound from this miscarriage would heal and that it wouldn't affect the relationship between-

I stopped as it struck me what George Evans meant.

The blood left my face, the chill spread throughout my body. The words were difficult to get out, as if they were sown to the back of my throat, but I needed to voice them. "When I was being held captured by Command, Steven Carter showed me what he had done to my mom."

George let me speak, his facial expression open and comforting, the heat from his hand on top of our joined hands reassuring.

"He showed me how he had successfully gotten her pregnant over and over again, but how she would later miscarry. Every time."

As I spoke, I felt Max grow increasingly tense next to me, gradually realizing that I was getting closer to voicing his unspoken fears.

"Max got me pregnant," I continued, "and then I lost the baby. Just like with Sergeant Carter and mom. He was an alien and she was a human. Just like Max and I."

George opened his mouth to answer, but I interrupted him by saying, "But then Philip and Diane had two children and that wasn't a problem even though they were of different races. And it made me think that maybe the problem wasn't cross-racial breeding, but that aliens are not able to breed with _geas_."

George didn't reply at first, making cold sweat break out on my forehead. I wanted to hear what he had to say, but at the same time I was afraid to hear the truth. Because I had a feeling that George Evans was indeed in possession of some very truthful answers to my questions.

"Steven Carter and Nancy Parker was never meant to happen," George said then. "The relationship, as I'm sure Steven Carter didn't mind showing you, was abusive and loveless. They had a connection, formed not by necessity but based on Steven's narcissistic opinions of him feeling that he had the right to dominate Nancy. That connection was purely an energetic bond, an electrical cord if you wish, to transfer energy. It was not a bond to transfer emotions or thoughts or to gain a better understanding of the other person. It was especially not a bond of love."

He paused, searching our faces, before continuing, "It was a purely selfish connection, with the sole purpose of gaining power."

It made me feel a bit better to hear him say that. To hear an alien defend my mom against another alien. To confirm that what Steven Carter had done to my mom was not okay.

"You must have noticed, being in such a powerful connection yourselves, that sometimes it feels as if the connection has an identity of its own."

 _No kidding,_ I thought grimly and looked over at Max, sharing a mixed expression with him.

"That is partly true. The connection has an interest in keeping the Antarian race alive and keeping the energy alive. It will strive to guide the connected persons into making the best decisions to keep their connectors safe and make sure that they survive for as long as possible. It will protect you, instinctively, if you were to be threatened-"

I thought of when I had killed Steven and Sean, when Max had been fatally injured. Later, Max had claimed then that it had been the connection protecting us and that I had not directly been the cause of their death. It had made sense somehow, but it had remained a theory, a guess at best. To hear George confirm it was a relief. It actually _had been_ the connection that had killed Sean and his father that day.

"-and direct your energy into abilities that are self-preserving," George concluded.

"So how does that explain what happened to my mom?" I asked, even though I had a feeling what his answer would be.

"I can not be certain as to the reason of their inability to procreate," George said. "But my guess would be that it was a combination of the connection not seeing any reason for their genes to combine, because there was not the right foundation - the right reason - for procreation, and the obvious fact that it would be difficult for Nancy to sustain a pregnancy while Steven kept pulling energy from her."

"And that would be different for me and Max?" I asked tentatively.

George's face brightened, his eyes warming, "Of course. Every connection is different. And yours is spectacularly different. Something that has never been seen before. Not even by the Elders. In regards to your connection, anything seems possible."

"But the baby died anyway…" I whispered.

George looked at me in sympathy. "Like Max has probably already told you, the baby died when you died. The connection was able to bring you two back from the dead, but there was no more original energy left to do the same for your unborn child." He paused and I looked down at our three hands bound together. The weathered dark skin of Max's grandfather, the tanned young skin of Max and my own pale porcelain skin.

"Your connection is amazing, and even though it performed a miracle in bringing you back from the dead, connections are not generally considered miracle workers. Connections are only as good as the energy they are provided with."

Hm. That made sense.

This conversation was making me calmer. It was helping me accept the death of the baby. It was making it easier for me to accept that there was not much I could have done to prevent the baby from dying.

But, "Why did the connection hide the baby from us?" I asked. "Had we known about it we would have been able to protect it and maybe not go into battle like we did."

George grimaced. "That's exactly why. The interest of the connection is, again, to make the Antarian race survive. And the interest of _your_ connection is to keep the purity alive and remove the darkness of the Antarian race. In other words, the connection prioritized you conquering Command, even if it increased the risk of your offspring not making it. In addition, there's always the risk that someone might break into a connection and see your 'secrets'. And if an enemy found out that you were carrying a child… It might have disastrous consequences."

"Why even bother making us pregnant then?" Max asked, voice cold and bitter.

He was thinking back to the time when he had realized that the connection was increasing our lust for each other and blinding us enough with desire to make us forget to be careful during sex. He was thinking of how betrayed he had felt and how he had hated the connection for removing his control over his own life and decisions.

"If the connection was intending to lead us into battle, it would be ridiculous to have Liz put energy into a pregnancy when she could have been saving that energy for battle," Max continued, sounding colder and harder with every word.

George shrugged lightly, but without seeming nonchalant or uninterested he answered, "Don't give the connection too much credit. It has a purpose and it has a goal, but it's not an analytic thinking entity. It won't weigh pros and cons. It won't calculate risk or probability. It only operates along the lines of ensuring the Antarian future. Especially ensuring the future of the parims. And as I told you earlier, the parims have suffered severe infertility, which gives your connection a more desperate need to ensure offspring."

"How does it know that, though?" I asked, frustrated. "If it's not a thinking entity, how does it know that parims are a dying breed and that there is darkness that should be fought?"

"Humans have a concept of collective consciousness. What this term means is different for different religions and psychological fields, but some believe that we are all connected. Our minds, our souls. I don't know if this is to be true for the homo sapiens, but it seems to be true for Antarian connections. Our bonds are able to feel the setting, the environment, the time, the energies. It can read what is needed and grows stronger when more action is needed. For instance, when darkness is growing and spreading."

"Is that why we have come to be?" I asked, not sure if I wanted to know the answer. Because once again the answer would tell me if I was _created_ or of my existence is a matter of chance.

"Might be," George answered truthfully. "The Antarians were desperate for goodness. The universal balance was off. It might very well have lead to you two being who you are, at the exact time that you are. For you two to be born in the same town, in the same year, attend the same school… There are just too many factors for it to be coincidental."

We were all silent for awhile, pondering this. But soon I heard where Max's mind was going, returning to my reason for having this meeting. Going back to the issue of Max and I 'procreating'.

"We won't have any troubles becoming pregnant then?" he asked and I had difficulties deciphering his tone of voice.

George cleared his throat. "Exactly. This is what I needed to talk to you about."

I grew stiff. His initial answer had lightened my heart, giving me hope that Max and I would have a family together in the future, but the rest of his statement gave me reason to doubt the good news of that answer.

"I fear that regular human contraception won't work for you."

I know I should be embarrassed that I was suddenly part of a conversation where my boyfriend's grandfather was speaking to me about contraception, but I wasn't. Instead I was very aware of how my heartbeat was peaking with adrenaline.

Max's swallow was audible before he said, "So… no condoms, pills, diaphragm-"

"You are meant to have children," George interrupted. "And your bodies do not care that it's not socially acceptable to have children at this age. Your bodies were ready when you entered puberty."

I paled. But…but… I looked at Max, met his wide-open eyes, saw the lack of blood in his cheeks.

 _We can't have sex anymore_ , I told him, shocked. _Unless we want to have like a zillion babies._

This was like couples before the invention of contraception, when they would have ten to fifteen children.

My stomach twisted. I wanted children, but not that many.

Without looking at his grandfather, Max addressed him in a whisper, "You can't be serious. That can't be true."

"Knowing you, Max, I'm certain you used some type of protection when you were with Liz the first time," George said and I saw some of the blood return to Max's cheeks.

"Yes," my uncomfortable boyfriend whispered.

"And that was the time Liz fell pregnant. It only took one time."

I knew this. Max knew this. Max had even been the one to tell me that.

I looked away from Max and looked at George. "So," my voice unstable, "What do you suggest we do?" It should have been embarrassing to ask, but I was way past that point, "Be celibate?"

"Our connection seems strengthened by sex," Max mumbled. "We need a lot of strength to rid the aliens from evil. Without being able to make love…"

"All of that is true," George agreed. "Either you don't engage in sex with the risk of the strength of your connection weakening. That is if you can even succeed in resisting the demands of the connection to bring you together."

I doubted that. I had felt the strength of the sexual desire when the connection set its 'mind' to make us have sex. Resisting that urge would be nearly impossible.

We would have to live apart from each other…

The connection had also worked to refuel us when injured, a benefit that would be foolish to waste.

But there was an, "Or…?" voiced by Max.

"Or you come up with a physical block made of energy to stop sperm from reaching the egg," George said evenly, as if he was discussing the weather rather than his grandson's sex life.

"Which is something you can teach me…?" Max asked with tentative hope.

George shook his head and my stomach tightened even further.

"No," he answered. "No. You see, we have never had any need to hinder the parims from procreating. Successful procreation has been our goal the whole time." He looked apologetic, his expression damning us to figuring this out all on our own. "I'll help you with the theoretical as much as I can, Max, but this will mostly be on you."

I looked at Max again and felt like crying. Because this was not about sex. It was never about only sex with Max. It was about closeness and merging together. It was about making love. It was about emotional healing. It was about sharing everything. Your soul. Your being. All of you.

Not caring that George was looking, I disentangled our hands and turned to put my arms around Max's neck, climbing onto his lap and hugging him close. It felt like a part of us had died. Something beautiful.

I just wanted the bad things to end now.


	9. EIGHT

_Hi!_

 _I'm sorry, everyone, for the infrequency of the updates lately. I've been going through something big in my personal life and now I'm on vacation, so activities outside have been my priority lately, making my writing suffer. Just wanted to let you know that I won't abandon this fic and that the ideas for this story are still there, I'm just a bit slow at writing right now._

 _Thank you so much for reading!_

 _"Guest" - This **does not** mean that Max and Liz have to be apart from now on. I'm sure they'll solve this problem. They always do. But I completely agree with you; they really need to catch a break soon. Thank you so much for the feedback!_

* * *

 **EIGHT**

The days leading up to starting school passed in a blur. It was at the beginning of February that I miscarried, on the fourth of that month to be exact. Our parents had arranged for us all to go back to school the following Monday, on the 8th of February. Incidentally, on that date, exactly 100 days had passed since the Halloween Party where I had first seen Max use his abilities. The party which had been the starting point for the chaotic life I was leading now.

It was surreal to think that it had only been 100 days, a little bit more than 3 months, since my whole life had changed. The things I had experienced during that time was more than most people would experience in an entire lifetime.

But in those few days before school would start for our group of weathered teenagers, I thought very little about numbers, months, and experiences. My mind was trapped in the foggiest of dazes, where I would not allow myself to think of neither the future nor the past.

Apparently, Buddha had once said, _Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment_ ,and that was exactly what I was trying to do.

Some might call it denial. Some might call it repression. And some might even call it regression. I called it coping. My father had briefly attempted to speak to me about seeing a therapist about, well, everything, but I had quickly brushed him off. Distracted him well enough to start talking about something else.

What was there I could tell a therapist anyway? 90% of my life was classified. Top Secret. Inconceivable.

The only thing I would be able to talk about with an outsider was the miscarriage. But that was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to my problems.

Maybe I could have talked about the death of my mother, focusing on the grief rather than the chain of events. But pondering the prospect of doing so had me realize that the therapist would sooner or later ask about those dangerous details and I might not have the energy to lie about what had happened. I definitely would not be able to tell the person that I still suffered nightmares tied to my real memories of how it felt to have your skin being so hot that it broke out in blisters and actually melted. The therapist would obviously be able to tell that I could never have been burnt because I had no scars. Not a physical mark on me. How would I explain that?

I spent my days watching from the outside, trapped in some imaginative glass bubble. Max was there, both inside and outside the bubble, his mind firmly connected with mine, his attention always fixed on my well-being. Max was better at interacting with the group, engaging in conversations, laughter and banter, while I solely continued to observe from the periphery. My body registered every brush of his hand against mine, every hug, every kiss to my forehead, cheek, lips. But I was not really there.

I observed my friends while they seemingly moved on with their lives, as if we were at some camping excursion instead of a fairly well guarded mansion. As if bad things had not happened and we were not still under threat. I watched Maria and Michael tease each other, get annoyed with each other, make out, yell at each other, laugh and hug. I noticed the glances between Isabel and Alex and the subtle touches whenever they got close to each other.

I watched my dad relax, involved in a discussion with Amy and Philip one second, then reading a magazine or book the next. He was getting more comfortable now that he could finally be open about the secrets in his head that hadn't made sense for so many years. A weight had been lifted from his shoulders. But I couldn't help noticing the glances he threw in my direction with increasing frequency. How he kept wanting to talk to me, tell me to eat something, pulling me into sporadic and surprising hugs. While I was focusing on trying to respond to his concern by reassuring him that everything was okay, he was worried senseless about me. Obviously, I was failing miserably at my intention to calm him down.

I knew that Philip, Dresden and George were having a lot of discussions, but I didn't have the energy to get my head around what those discussions entailed. They were obviously about how we were all in the middle of the process of 'fixing' the Antarian race by ridding it of darkness. But the pseudo-meetings were also about the whereabouts of the mayor.

I had, however, paid enough attention to know that the mayor was still missing and that every lead so far was turning up blank.

Through the meetings I had also been informed of their plans to place protectors - bodyguards - around the school once Max and I started attending classes. Extra protectors were going to follow Max and I to and from school. If we needed to do any after school activities that didn't involve returning straight to the mansion, the protectors were to come along to those extracurricular activities as well. The protectors were to wear civilian clothing and attempt to avoid attracting attention. It didn't, however, stop _me_ from being extremely aware of their constant presence.

The extra security made me feel a lot safer, but also a lot less free. I could only hope this arrangement was temporary. I could only hope that they would catch the mayor very soon.

"Ready?"

I looked up - my unseeing eyes having stared at the water from the tap as the stream swirled in slow, gentle curves around the drain at the center of the white porcelain sink before disappearing - to meet Max's worried reflection in the mirror as he was standing in the doorway to the bathroom.

I idly wondered how long he had been standing there, before I straightened, cleared my throat, turned off the tap and brushed my hair back. Too late I realized that my hands were still wet from having washed them previously and forgotten to dry them on off, my hands now making my hair damp at the temples.

Looking away from Max, I met my own reflection in the polished bathroom mirror and really saw _me_ for the first time in so many days. I noticed the paleness to my face and the once full cheeks caving in with lack of life and food. I noticed the darkness underneath my eyes and the dryness to my lips. Without conscious thought, I licked my lips at the sight, but my attention was already drawn to my eyes. Once bright and lustrous, they were now flat and lifeless. Dead.

I frowned. A stranger was standing before the mirror, looking at me. Who was that? Who was this person who had replaced Elizabeth Parker? Why did my own face suddenly look unfamiliar?

"Lizzie?" Max asked, that all familiar stomach-gnawing worry in his voice.

I could feel his worry about me like claws slowly shredding through my insides. I quickly looked away from my (strange) reflection and turned to face him. He had lost weight too. Or rather, he had never really regained the weight he had previously lost. Being in a type of symbiosis with a girlfriend who was hurting mentally was putting a damper on his appetite as well.

He stretched his hand out towards me in a wordless invitation. I took a step forward and grabbed it, my hand lacking the strength to squeeze, but he made up for it by firmly pressing my hand, holding me tight in his warm hold.

I took another step forward and my chest brushed against his. When he didn't move, I looked up and met the darkness of his eyes. His eyes were never golden brown anymore. Lately, they were constantly dark with emotions.

"What?" I mumbled, wondering why he wasn't moving, why we weren't walking.

He searched my face and I scanned his. I itched to touch the small beard he was sporting and wanted to run my fingers through his thick hair. But my arms didn't move. They no longer obeyed such wishes.

Knowing my mind, he lifted the hand I had offered him and pressed my trembling palm against his cheek. The soft tips of my fingers sank into the rough hairs of his stubble. He leaned his head into my hand, flattening the palm of his hand against the back of mine.

"Do you want to do this?" he asked, his voice a mere whisper.

Wordlessly, I nodded.

"Because we can delay. Postpone. Whatever you need."

"I'm fine," I mumbled.

He was still for a couple of seconds, before angling his head to press a kiss to the heel of my hand.

"Okay," he agreed, even though we were both very aware that my assurance was an outright lie.

When we arrived downstairs, me with my thoughts somewhere else and Max practically dragging me along on my uncooperative feet, Maria addressed me with something. The loud buzz in my head hindered me from making out her words. I know that Isabel was close by too and that my father pulled me into a hug. I felt Alex's presence behind us the whole way out to the car.

Max was driving. I was placed in the passenger seat, Max helping me into the seat as if I were sick and unable to move on my own. He even leaned over to buckle my seatbelt. Maria and Alex were in the back. Michael and Isabel were in Isabel's car.

They were all being normal. Or _acting_ normal. Maria and Alex were bantering in the backseat like two siblings, Max was telling them to behave like some father figure. Next they were gossiping about people at school, people they hadn't seen in several weeks. After that they moved on to discussing classes and teachers.

I didn't say a word. I was completely occupied with watching the landscape pass by the car window so quickly that it smoothed into a blur. I felt Max's gaze on the side of my face repeatedly, his recurrent silence from not participating in Maria and Alex's discussions telling me that he was acutely focused on me.

I guess it should make me feel special and taken care of. But I couldn't feel. Not now. I needed to take in that I was outside. Outside in the real world. Sitting in a car. Going to Roswell High.

* * *

School.

With its bland bricked hallways, systematically and partly covered by yellow lockers, the place of learning used to be a place of enjoyment and indulgence for me. From a very young age, my nose had been constantly buried in a book, devouring Shakespeare, Austen, Hemingway, Tolkien, Dahl, and science. Science in every shape; biology, astronomy, physics, chemistry.

School.

With those brick hallways crammed with students. Teenagers occupied with their own lives. Teenagers with their noses buried in their smartphones, bumping into one another while occupied with something on the screen. Teenagers wearing the latest fashions or wearing no particular fashion at all. Teenagers who laughed, screamed, talked loudly, made dramatic gestures, flirted, snuck a peek at a love interest across the corridor.

Teenagers who stared. Stared at us. At me.

Teenagers who grew quiet and still as we passed. Teenagers who looked up from their smartphones and took a step to the side to avoid bumping into us.

While my head had been lowered up until now, entering the school made me look up. The silence that spread like a fire throughout the student population cleared the fog in my head, rebooted my survival instinct. Put my guard up.

From scanning the faces of the teens alone, I could fairly well estimate who were humans and who were not. The human students looked shocked, surprised, intrigued. Their faces looked like bird houses, their mouths hanging open in the formation of perfect circles. The alien students looked…blank. No surprises there. No expressions. Complete…nothingness. Except for their arms, which they all had crossed tightly across their chests in silent disapproval.

The chill in my chest was real. How much did they know? What story did the humans know? What story did the aliens know? Who were on _our_ side?

Max's hand on my arm made me jump, while he hissed into my mind, _Calm down!_

Naturally, I looked down at my arm, where his fingers were digging deeply enough into my arm to make my skin blanch around his fingertips. Simultaneously, I couldn't help but notice the light that was being emitted from the tips of my fingers. The bright white light.

I inhaled sharply and managed to retract the energy. As soon as the light disappeared, my gaze snapped upwards to scan the crowd. How much had they seen?!

But their expressions were the same and no one was looking at my arm. The energy had been me, intuitively, preparing myself for battle, my whole being feeling threatened by the setting.

 _I won't let anything happen to you,_ Max told me silently, his promise firm and believable. _And for the classes I'm not with you, Alex will be. And there'll be protectors in the corridors, disguised as guidance consolers, nurses, janitors._

"I know," I whispered under my breath, keeping a close watch on the persons flanking the sides of the hallway as if walking carefully past a starving pride of lions.

Catching the dark eyes of Courtney Green, the dangerous expression in her eyes making my heart miss a beat, I was reminded that I should speak to Max telepathically rather than vocally.

 _What do they know?_

He squeezed my hand, directing me towards my locker. Distantly, I wondered if I would remember the combination to the lock. It had been so long.

Max stood next to me, looking unaffected and suave while I fumbled with the combination, his voice clear in my head.

 _Do you remember the back-up story I told you to tell Maria before she knew the truth?_

Vaguely. There was something about me grieving my mother and dad and me going away on vacation-

 _Yes,_ Max told me approvingly. _That's the one. At the same time that happened my dad got a job at a hospital in Boston and our whole family moved there. Michael attended school while we were in captivity, but his attendance is not regular as it is, so his absence probably didn't raise many flags. Alex was away on a trip. Maria and her mom traveled to join you and your dad._

I got the locker open and stilled as I stared at the books neatly piled up in there. A bittersweet nostalgic emotion that I had difficulty defining moved through me. The photographs decorating the inside of the door, photographs of Alex, Maria and I, - photographs from before - put a lump of sadness at the bottom of my throat.

 _But how does that explain you and I?_ I asked as I traced the backs of the books.

 _History of Life. Evolutionary Theory. Chemical Basis of Life. To Kill a Mockingbird. American History._

 _It doesn't,_ Max explained. _The rumor that has been fluctuating was that we actually eloped and that the other stories were cover stories. That our parents went after us to track us down and they found us before we got married and hauled us back home._

I pulled out _Evolutionary Theory_ for the biology lesson and asked, _And we are going with that rumor?_

 _Got any other ideas? We are going to be seen together. We are obviously a couple._

I closed the door to the locker with an obvious clang and looked up at him.

He looked rather bored. As if he was just waiting for his girlfriend to get her stuff. Not at all like he was having a conversation with her. I needed to practice that as well; that blank expression. I couldn't let the world know that I was actually silently talking to Max. It probably looked weird with all my emotions displayed on my face when I wasn't obviously talking to anybody.

I shrugged and told him, "Let's go with that."

"Let's go with what?" Alex asked behind me.

Max looked at him, "She'll tell you later," before returning his attention to me and using both his arms to pull me close. His hands rested on the top of the curve of my butt as he looked down at me and whispered, "We'll get through this." He bent slightly at the knees to softly place a kiss to my lips. "I love you."

I nodded. Tried not to cry. I hadn't been away from him for more than an hour since we had been reunited after having been rescued from captivity. We had two hours ahead of us with separate hours in a place where I no longer felt safe.

"I'll see you in no time," Max continued, eavesdropping on my fears, and added quietly, _And you can always talk to me like this, you know._

I nodded again, swallowed back the tears itching at the back of my throat.

He placed another kiss on my lips before he rested his warm lips on my forehead, cradling my cool cheek in his hand.

"I love you," I told him in a soft whisper, my voice wavering.

I couldn't explain why this freaked me out so much. Why the prospect of facing Roswell High on my own frightened me almost as much as facing Command in battle. School was supposed to be familiar. Safe.

Max slowly let me go and gave Alex a hard look. "Don't let her out of your sight."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alex do a mock salute, tapping his heels together. "Yes, sire!"

His comical response to Max's deadly serious order eased my worries a bit, took the drama out of the situation, even though it brought more darkness to Max's expression.

Before Max could say anything, Alex cooled his appearance and said, "Relax. I'll guard her with my life."

 _It's his job_ , I thought darkly, but I couldn't deny that it felt good to have Alex next to me.

Max nodded at him, attempted a smile in my direction (which fell flat) and took off down the corridor.

Alex came around to face me, wearing his most goofy Alex-smile. Offering his bent elbow, he said, "Alrighty then. Let's do this. Let's face the monsters."

I shivered, took a deep breath, and looped my arm through his. There was not a single trace of bravado in my voice as I said, "Okay."


	10. NINE

**NINE**

The morning actually went better than I thought it would. The first thirty minutes were hard, with students whispering and staring, but once I decided to let it go and focus on the teacher, things ran relatively smoothly.

It was actually really nice to be in a classroom again. To take notes. To answer questions. To get back into a comfortable routine. I was aware of Max's presence in my mind the whole time, but he left it up to me to reach out and make contact. To my surprise, I realized that I didn't need to. I was too focused on the teacher to talk to Max.

When I joined Max for biology in the third period, his face looked lighter, his eyes not as black. He gave me a soft smile, pecked a kiss to the corner of my mouth and took a seat next to me. He held my hand under the desk the whole lesson, his thumb gently moving back and forth over the side of my hand.

At the end of that period, I felt much calmer. I had a newfound belief that things were going to be okay. That it was the right decision to go back to school. At least until we reached the school cafeteria to have lunch.

I _had_ been aware of the stares and whispers from the students while walking from one class to the next, but I had tried my best to ignore them and had been quite successful at that.

The cafeteria was different. There was no way I could avoid the people there. Feeling under threat, I briefly met the knowing gaze of the lunch lady (who I didn't recognize and immediately assumed to be one of our protectors in disguise) before I refocused on choosing a club sandwich for lunch and searching out the table already occupied by Maria and Michael.

It was impossible to miss them; Maria rising from her seat and doing a large waving gesture. Michael looked like he wanted to disappear through the ground, partly hiding his face behind his left hand while he was pulling at the bottom of Maria's shirt with his other, trying to get her to sit down.

I tried to make my steps light and unbothered as I concentrated on Maria's normalcy (normal Maria behavior, anyway) and directed my steps towards them. Max was still at the counter, choosing his lunch, when Courtney Green stepped up to me. Seemingly out of nowhere.

Stopping right in front of me, I was an inch away from walking straight into her, blinking rapidly in surprise as her face was suddenly a mere inch from mine. Her warm breath spilled over my face, my lunch tray pressing into her middle, but all I could see was her eyes. Black. Either filled with pupils or lacking irises. I wasn't sure which, but it scared the hell out of me. Her eyes were exactly like the aliens of Sci-Fi movies and I wondered if she purposely did them like that to scare me.

"I know what you did to Sean," she hissed menacingly, small droplets of her saliva hitting the lower part of my face. Her voice lowered an octave and she added, "Bitch."

Having gotten over my initial shock, I regained some kind of innate strength and matched my hiss to hers when I told her to, "Get away from me."

Her eyes narrowed. She didn't move an inch. "I've heard a lot of fucking shit about you. Makes me gag. Like you are our savior or something."

My body felt hot, my knuckles hurting from my fingers tightening around the edges of the plastic lunch tray. "I don't care what you heard, you're in my space." My voice was cold, barely above a whisper, and to the point. "Move."

Surprisingly - even to myself - my old confident, abrasive self had resurfaced. Maybe it was school that had brought it out in me. Maybe it was the provocation of the situation. Whatever it was, I was relieved that I had the strength to not curl up into a crying, frightened ball of human flesh, but was actually standing up for myself. Considering the apathetic mood I had been in lately, I would never have expected this response from myself.

Max was behind me now. He was ready to throw the protective field up. He was silently - with eye language - communicating with the protectors stationed around the cafeteria to remain cool. For now, he let me be. Choosing to not interfere.

It was important that I was not saved by an alien, a.k.a Max, right now. It was important that I could prove that I could hold my own, in front of all these aliens. And Max could tell that I had the situation under control.

Unless Courtney did something unpredictable.

Courtney's eyes didn't flicker, the complete darkness of them as emotionless as the rest of her face. It was unnerving to hear such emotion in her voice when her face showed nothing. "You fucking killed him! They told me all about it. Max had nothing to do with that. That was all you. A fucking insignificant _human_."

More spit landed on my face. I didn't even move. Didn't want to give her the satisfaction of flinching.

"You have manipulated Max. He used to be on our side. Now he's all puppy eyes for you. You made him betray his own race, destroy our culture, propose that _you_ ," she vehemently spit the word out, "mean something." Her black eyes blinked. "You. A gaea. Nothing more than a brainless, mind warped whore." Barely breathing she continued with, "You're only good for one thing; giving us energy and getting your brain fucked out."

I had let her speak. I had let her speak while silently watching her mouth move, silently observing how provoked she seemed to become by my lack of response to her insults. I had not moved a muscle. Not even to raise my hand to wipe off her disgusting saliva from my face.

Now I calmly asked her, "Are you done?"

Apparently, she wasn't. "I hope Max sucks you dry." A short humorless laugh trickled over her lips. "You deserve to end up like your slut of a mother; with a brain like mush."

The anger exploded inside of me. Which most likely had been Courtney's goal. Maybe she wanted to see if I really was capable of killing someone, as she had heard that I had done to Sean, which meant that she was not even fearing her own life. Or maybe she just wanted to see me expose myself in front of the whole cafeteria, advertising the aliens to the human students, and thus breaking the cardinal rule of the Antarian society. Maybe she hoped I would be punished for it. Maybe she hoped I would be kicked out of the alien society for it. Maybe she wished they would rid me of my special treatment and demote me into plain gaea status.

But without Courtney realizing he had stepped in, Max put a barrier around my anger before it could visibly detonate, secretly saving me from whatever the repercussions would be if I exposed the existence of alien powers, and simultaneously not letting Courtney get the best of me.

Some anger still got out though, which culminated in the very sharp impact between the palm of my hand and the soft and rouged cheek of her face.

Real surprise flashed across her face for the fraction of a second, retracting the blackness of her eyes, hinting of the human irises behind the dark veil, before she bared her teeth, hunched forward with her shoulders pulled back like a tiger ready to spring at me.

"Courtney."

His calm, even voice cut straight through her tense posture and she froze. Her eyes flickered to my boyfriend - the owner of that composed voice - and her tight lips relaxed to cover her teeth.

"You don't want to do that," Max continued. "Think of the punishment."

She stared at him, wildness in her eyes, gaze snapping between him, me, and next bouncing around the large room. As if she had suddenly become aware of our surroundings.

So had I.

The cafeteria was eerily silent. Everyone - and by that I mean _everyone_ \- was watching us. I doubted they could hear any actual words from our conversation, but our body language was enough to tell every single student that a cat fight was imminent.

But, scanning the crowd, the difference between humans and aliens was even more obvious than previously. The humans were quiet, but restlessly so. Shifting from one foot to the other, one facial expression replacing the next, eyes constantly moving between Courtney, Max and I, the humans were desperately trying to assess and get a grip on the situation.

The aliens were motionless, one hand slightly raised in front of their bodies, and they were all on their feet. To the untrained eye, they probably didn't look suspicious at all, but to me they looked extremely conspicuous.

Were they prepared to take out me or Courtney?

"Can't you see?" Courtney said then, addressing Max with a hiss like the one she used with me at the beginning of our 'conversation'. She pointed sharply at me, barely gracing me with a glance, "She's manipulated you. You're completely pussy-whipped." Taking a step away from me, making me almost drop the tray to the floor when the supporting pressure from her abdomen disappeared, and taking a step around me to get closer to Max, she whispered to him loudly, "She's gonna kill you, just like she did with Sean. Just wait. She'll get tired of you. I'm trying to warn you. Don't be a fool, Max. You can't see it now, but you will. And when you do, it'll be too late."

"We're gonna have lunch now," Max said evenly, blatantly ignoring what she said. I knew that he wasn't that calm on the inside. I knew that he was ready to strangle her. I knew that feeling had been present in him since Courtney had approached me, growing with every hateful word in my direction.

But apparently Max knew quite a lot about manipulation (should I be worried?). He knew that the worst punishment for Courtney - the worst retaliation - would be to pretend like he didn't hear what she was saying. That she was talking about the weather. To avoid adding fuel to the fire.

There was no point in trying to explain how she had gotten everything wrong. She wouldn't listen anyway; she had already made up her mind. Instead she would be triumphant that she had managed to get a rise out of us.

"And my food is getting cold," Max continued.

Courtney frowned. If she had been 100% human, I bet she would have stomped her foot right now and screamed at him, but her lack of emotions (coupled with the desaturation of her aura) told me that she was one of the darker aliens. One that Max and I would do best at 'curing' in the future. She was one of Command's followers.

But in our job to cure the alien race, we had not reached the teenagers (and the kids) yet. It was more important to deal with the adults first.

In light of Courtney's low degree of humanity, Courtney's frown was a monumental emotional reaction. It even retracted the veil of darkness in her eyes completely, revealing beautiful blue eyes.

She took a step back from us, shaking her head, and redirecting the pointing of her finger towards Max. "Trust me, Max Evans. She is going to be your downfall. She is going to be all of our downfall."

Hunching slightly, bringing him down to Courtney's height, Max looked her straight in the eyes and lowered his voice, "Before you start accusing people, I suggest you get your facts straight. I know that you'll probably go home to your parents after this and tell them all about this and how they need to do something about it. But know that if you do, they can't do anything about it. Because we're in charge now."

His words gave me goosebumps. The effect was not the same on Courtney. Her eyes looked ready to fall out of her head, she was staring so hard at Max. She didn't even seem to be breathing as he added, "And us being in charge is not even going to be as unpleasant as you have been told. Your life sucks right now, and you don't even know it. It can only get better."

I almost laughed at this. It almost sounded as if Max was trying to enlist Courtney into a religious sect, with the promise of him making everything better.

But whatever his intention with those words had been, it had the desired effect in Courtney. Her face paled in the most human way and she took a step back. Then another. Followed by a third. On the fourth step, she turned on her heel and disappeared out of the cafeteria without a single word.

The large room was quiet for another ten seconds, before sporadic whispers erupted from the human population. Whispers that grew louder and quickly turned into a diffuse buzz of human voices.

Looking at the humans around the room, now only occasionally glancing at Max and I, while whispering with their friends, I noticed some individuals with expressionless faces leave the cafeteria, following Courtney's footsteps.

But the majority of the aliens stayed. And while I scanned the room, trying to organize my thoughts and feelings with the tray forgotten in my hands, I was distracted by a white light in the center of one of the alien's chest. It seemed to be a part of his aura, but still not. More like the energy that they shot from their hands, but this one instead originating from the chest.

I took a frightened step backwards, on the verge of producing the protective shield, when Max's arm wrapped around my waist from behind and he told me, _Wait. It's not an attack._

My breath was loud in my ears, rapid and shallow, while I kept watching the light in the center of that guy's chest. Kyle. His name was Kyle. I couldn't remember his last name, but I knew that he was one of the jocks Max played basketball with. Before.

A mere second later the room seemed to brighten and I forced myself to look away from Kyle.

The sight paused my shallow breaths, froze me to the spot.

It was not just Kyle anymore. That same light phenomenon was being initiated in almost all of the remaining alien students. The light brightened their auras, made them more colorful, made the colors more intense.

It was not a blinding light, but nevertheless a very present light.

Wonderment at the sight was quickly replaced by fear as I spotted the humans mixed within the aliens.

 _The humans! They'll see!_

 _No,_ Max replied calmly. _They can't see this light._

I frowned, about to ask him of his credence, but he beat me to it, _I'm sure._

With his confidence, I tried to relax, but it was still an odd sight, still something I was wary of. And I still didn't get it.

 _What are they doing?_

Max was quiet for three long seconds, before he whispered into my ear, his breath warm and soothing against my skin, "They're showing their allegiance. To me. To us. To you."

 _To me?_

Most have wanted change for a long time and they can finally be open about it. It's finally safe.

Slowly, I looked at each and every one of them and I felt my heart swell with wonderment. The wary feeling vanished, replaced by amazement and awe. The lights were no longer threatening, but beautiful. The blank faced aliens were no longer frightening, but potential allies. Potential friends.

Then Maria was there. Her large blonde curls blocking my vision. "Liz? Are you okay?"

I blinked, dazed, and looked up at her.

"What did that crazy witch say to you?" Maria continued, quickly pulling me back to reality.

"Um..." I cleared my throat, blinking. I felt rejuvenated. Strengthened.

"Don't listen to anything she says. She always had her eyes set on your man. She's probably just jealous."

I nodded and managed an absent-minded smile. "Yeah. I think so too."

Maria's frown went unnoticed by me, but she let me off the hook with a contemplative shrug to her slender shoulders. "Alright. Let's eat. Lunch is almost over, thanks to Courtney."

Another nod to my head got Maria back on track towards the table and when my visual field cleared up, the lights were gone. The aliens had taken their seats. The humans were talking amongst themselves, one throwing a napkin at his friend, the friend retaliating by throwing a piece of softened lettuce. The aliens were no longer looking at us, having resumed their lunch as well.

It was like it had never happened.

 _It did,_ Max assured me, his stable hold around my waist tightening. The movement pulled my back flushed with the front of his warm body and I was tempted to close my eyes and enjoy the feeling. But I couldn't close my eyes. They kept scouring the crowd of the cafeteria, trying to find any sign that the whole thing had not been a mere hallucination on my part.

"Come on," he whispered in my ear, pressing a kiss just below it. "Let's eat."

He took the tray out of my hands and walked ahead of me towards the table, leaving me dazed and confused as to what had just happened.

Because what had just happened meant that we were not alone. It highlighted something I had not yet thought about; This was not only the adults' war. This was everyone's war.

Our sacrifices, our pain, had not been in vain. We had actually _helped_.

That light had originated from their hearts. That light had been hope. That light had been gratitude.

That light had proved that they had accepted me as one of their own and would protect me as one of their own.

Realizing that I must look stupid just standing there, I got my legs moving, swallowed the tears of relief and quickly joined the chattering table of my friends.

Max reached down and pulled my chair closer, its metallic legs scraping loudly against the floor with the repositioning, melting the sides of our thighs together under the table surface, and he caught my hand with his. Lifting it to his lips, he placed a gentle kiss to my knuckles and gave me a look through his eyelashes that said everything.

It was going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay.

TBC...

* * *

 _Thank you for reading!_

 _\- Jo_


	11. TEN

_"Guest" - Your gut feeling was spot on. Courtney has a thing for Max. Let's hope that doesn't cause any trouble in the future. Thank you for the feedback!_  
 _Speechymol - I'm happy that you like the "turn" this story has (momentarily) taken. I felt that it needed some normalcy as well after all that crazy alien stuff. Thank you so much for the feedback!_

* * *

 **TEN**

"How was school?"

It was not the regular, semi-interested, standard question. This was a loaded question. A question that was shaking with nervousness and fearful anticipation.

My dad looked at me with large eyes, trying unsuccessfully to hide how much he wished for a positive answer to his question.

"Um," I mused and settled for a shrug. "Good, actually."

The small introspective smile on my lips must have confused him. "Really?"

"Yeah," I continued. "It was actually good."

"No weird questions?" my dad implored further. "Nothing strange happen? They accepted that you were there?"

"Well," Max came up behind me and wrapped his arm across my shoulder, pulling me into his side, "Liz got a vote of confidence."

Dad looked lost. "'Vote of confidence'?"

I looked up at Max, wondering if I should tell or…

He smiled at me. "Tell him."

The relief at being able to be honest with my dad washed over me pleasurably and I started my recounting of the events of the day without a second of hesitation, "It was really cool, actually."

Max filled in the blanks when I myself was missing facts. Max had informed me of the meaning of the light shining from everyone's chest when we had been on our way home from school, but there were still some questions lingering here and there which I now got the answers to while speaking to my father with Max next to me.

Describing to my father what had happened, I realized that Max calling it 'Vote for confidence' was a really good description of what had happened in that canteen. Even though some of the aliens had left the canteen, refusing to 'vote' for me, a majority of the aliens had stayed. They had showed their respect.

I wasn't able to fully describe how it felt to have so many aliens on our side.

"I take it that you won't have any troubles continuing school then?" dad asked hopefully after I had told him of the day's event.

He had probably been afraid that I never wanted to return to school after today.

I shook my head in negative. "Nope."

The smile stretched from one ear to the next when he pulled me into a warm hug. "I'm so happy for you, Ella."

"Me too," I mumbled into his shoulder and squeezed him tighter.

* * *

The day at school had been better than I could ever have hoped and had truly improved my mood. Still, the emotional dip that arrived shortly after supper couldn't be avoided. I was alone in Max's room at the time, Max wanting to talk to his grandfather privately.

My guess is that the remainder of the pregnancy hormones in my system, coupled with me being alone, plunged me into a dark place.

It was not that I grieved the fetus, per se. It was so small when I miscarried it, barely even called a fetus yet, still an embryo. I hadn't felt it move, hadn't even known if its existence.

What was crushing me, which made my chest ache and tears roll down my cheeks, was the feeling of what might have been. Max and I were not ready to be parents, but it didn't make me miss the possibilities any less.

I could still visualize nursing an infant, my inner eye seeing the child take its first steps, picturing the small child in Max's arms. I was certain, without a trace of doubt, that we both would have loved that child.

When Max walked into his room twenty minutes later, I was curled up on my side on the bed, legs pulled to my waist and tears quietly wetting my face and the bedspread.

I looked up at him through my tears as he approached the bed. Caressing my damp cheek with his knuckles, he tenderly said, "Let's go outside."

In the midst of my gloomy mood, I managed to raise an eyebrow at him, before looking over my shoulder at the setting sun through the window.

"Trust me, you'll feel better," he promised me. "Dress warmly, it's getting chilly."

The garden of the Evans' mansion was beautiful, throughly kept in check by the full-time gardener. Living on top of a restaurant in the middle of town, I never had a garden growing up. Still, this was not exactly a garden that I could picture children running around in. It was all so neatly structured, with stone pathways, brick walls that divided the garden up into different sections, vibrant plants that thrived in the New Mexican heat adding color to the sandy landscape. During the current winter months, the orange light from the setting sun was coloring the evergreen vegetation, the flowery plants in hibernation for a couple of months yet.

Max brought me to a small patch of well-irrigated grass at the back of the garden. As he put a thick blanket down, guiding me to sit down in the privacy created under the Magnolia tree, we were not alone. Our ever-present bodyguards had followed us as soon as we got outdoors. They granted us some privacy by staying at least thirty feet away from us, but their watching eyes still made me feel surveilled and not in the least hidden nor private.

This must be what royalty and famous people felt like. Never alone. Never safe.

I was still scanning our surroundings and the trespassers (as I had chosen to label the protectors) when Max took a seat in front of me, mimicking my cross-legged position, having our knees touch. He attracted my full attention when he reached out and grabbed both of my hands with his.

"Remember what I did when Sean was trying to find you in that garden at that party?"

I frowned at him and probably wouldn't have figured out what he was hinting at if it hadn't been for my ability to peek inside his mind and watch the memory he was referring to. The memory of the time when he had held me tightly to his front - his arm around my middle and his hand initially over my mouth to prevent me from screaming in surprised shock - in a dark unfamiliar garden.

The time when Max had turned us both invisible and Sean subsequently had failed at finding me.

"Yes?" I answered questioningly.

He smiled at me, one corner of his mouth curving upwards in a sexy angle. Heat shot straight through my body and my next breath got stuck in my throat.

He was up to something. There was something he was hiding from me. It made me both excited and slightly nervous. Mostly because his eyes had darkened with that sexual heat I had not seen in a long time. A look I had not seen since before the war and before the whole thing with the pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage.

 _They can't see us anymore,_ he told me then.

I had expected a shift in energy. Had even expected the sensation of energy being pulled from me, like it had the previous time. Max's invisibility act had, after all, knocked me unconscious that last time.

I hadn't expected to feel completely unaffected, not in any way being able to tell that my physical self was currently invisible.

My head whipped to the closest protector, but except for him no longer looking straight at us, (now having the expression of a blind person - unable to fix their sight exactly on an object) there was nothing on his face that revealed our sudden disappearance.

 _They knew that you were going to do that, didn't they?_ I communicated with Max while scanning our protectors. They all wore the same expressions; trying to seem unaffected by the situation, but at the same time their eyes being unable to focus on us.

Because they could no longer see us.

 _I had to tell them,_ Max informed me. _Or they might freak out._

I frowned. _How are they going to protect us if they can't even see us?_

 _They can still see everyone else. In other words, they can still see potential enemies approach, and if there would suddenly be a threat, we might just be safer being invisible than visible. If not, we would just drop the veil and become visible._

I looked at the people standing around the garden. _So they'll just wait here until we become visible, assuming that we are still here?_

His eyes gleamed with a mischievous spark. _Elizabeth Parker. Are you suggesting that we leave this place with them remaining here like fools?_

I laughed. I couldn't help it. I liked this carefree, naughty and playful Max. Acting abashed by his suggestion, I protested, _No, that's not what I meant!_

He squeezed my hands and leaned forward. His lips were cool from the chill in the air when they touched mine, as soft as I remembered them to be, his stubbly beard scratching my cheek lightly. But there was nothing 'cold' about that kiss. A current went through me every time his tongue touched mine. I moaned when he nibbled on my lips, when he caught my bottom lip between both of his.

We were both panting when we came out of the kiss.

With his face remaining close to mine, he mumbled teasingly, "But they can still hear us," hinting at my moan.

Heat spread across my face and from the amused expression in Max's eyes, I concluded that he could both see and feel my blush.

I smacked him, feeling equally embarrassed and self-aware.

He laughed, caught my slightly resisting body in his arms and pulled me into an awkward hug. Awkward because of our crossed-legged positions. Resisting because I was not that pleased with him teasing me.

I relaxed in his hug, breathing in the smell of his skin from the curve of his neck, and bundled his jacket in the grip of my fingers.

 _Why are we out here?_ I asked, eyes closed, body melting into his.

There was a serenity over the garden. It was so quiet. I could hear the slight wind rustling the leaves of the magnolia and there was a faint frosty smell in the air. There was not a single sound of human activity. The Evans' mansion was positioned somewhat outside of Roswell, yards from the closest house, providing it with the privacy of personal space. I knew that the Evans house itself was buzzing with activity, but evidently the sounds from said activity was not transported to the outside.

It was the most quiet I had experienced since… well, a really long time.

Had I not had an insight into Max's feelings, I might have assumed that the sole purpose of taking me out here had been to destress me, but I sensed that the goal of this garden visit was something else.

 _We…_ he paused, his mental voice adopting a sensual slowness, _…are going to try and figure out an effective birth control._

As on cue, my body tightened with desire. I felt the reciprocative response in his body.

 _Because I can barely keep my hands off you_.

I pulled out of his embrace and looked into his darkened eyes. His warm, heated, darkened eyes. His confession made my heartbeats flutter, my toes curl, my cheeks flush.

To be honest, sex hadn't really been on my mind since the miscarriage. It had only been a couple of days since the incident and I was still bleeding, the body slowly eliminating every trace of the spontaneous abortion.

And on Max's own suggestion - him being my personal doctor- he thought it best to not have sex until I had stopped bleeding, to prevent uterine infections. But I had not thought much of it, seeing that we had that itty bitty problem of not having a good method of preventing a pregnancy.

While Max and his grandfather had dwelled into the physical and medical aspect of contraception, I had immersed myself into the digital version, venturing into cyberspace in the search of 'safe periods' and 'fertile days'. Because that was relied upon by many humans, when regular contraception was not used. A woman would learn to recognize her fertile days and avoid sex during them.

But there was two big problems with my findings. 1) Women had the strongest desire during her fertile days, which in some cases seemed to - on a subconscious level - signal this information to the man, making it very difficult for them to resist each other. And add the factor of an instinctive alien bond and the desire might be impossible to ignore. 2) What insurance was there that the connection wouldn't somehow rearrange my hormones, making me fertile when I the least expected it, or making me ovulate like a cat? In other words, ovulate as a result of the sex act itself?

In summary, after my thorough research, I had reached the conclusion that a custom-made contraception had to be 'manufactured' for Max and I.

Not even my mind was immune to the trembling of my emotions, making my mental voice wobble as I asked incredulously, _And you're suggesting we figure that out here? Out in the open? In front of the protectors?_

"Ah," Max whispered, an amused smile playing on his lips. "But they can't see us."

I lowered my voice as well and leaned in so close that my lips brushed against his as I pointed out, "But by your own declaration, they can _hear_ us."

He winked at me, causing my center to deliciously tighten. His dark breathy voice was a mere suggestive whisper across the small space between our faces, "Are you intending to be noisy?"

I bit into my lower lip, registering his eyes moving to watch the act, "I have no idea what you're planning to do to me." His eyes darkened with lust and I held my breath as I added thinly, my whole body tightening in anticipation, "I can only assume that we're out here because we might be heard if we had done this inside the house."

The air around us was thick with desire and the foretaste of sex. My heart was beating forcefully in my chest, my blood loud and hot as it throbbed past my ears.

As he placed his hand on top of my thigh, my tight body jumped, my every sense being on high alert, barely breathing as I awaited his next move. The gentle pressure of his thumb as he started moving it in circles against my jeans-clad leg, had my chest heave heavily and noticeably up and down. My body was almost coming apart at the seams as he leaned in and pressed his lips to mine. The kiss started slow and deliberate - his lips and tongue exploring every millimeter of my anticipating lips - but with my reciprocal the kiss quickly turned hotter and more urgent.

My arms moved up his arms, fingers nestling restlessly into the nape of his neck, burrowing into his thick hair. His hands moved up my thighs and underneath my knitted sweater, folding over my breasts, still swollen from the recent pregnancy. In the matter of seconds, the sides of his hands had pushed down at the cotton of the bra and I felt his palms against my stiffening nipples. The intimate contact was both excruciating and wonderful.

My restless hands were now at his waist, moving under his T-shirt and sweater, wanting to feel his warm skin under my hands, needing to caress the expanses of his muscular and fairly hair-free chest. I vaguely registered the rippling of his muscles underneath my touch as our heated kissing quickly intensified our sexual haze.

I couldn't get enough of him. I couldn't get enough of touching him, of his kisses, of the small sounds of his restrained groans originating from deep in his throat, of the explosion of his emotions through the connection.

Perhaps it was my body, not yet recuperated from the miscarriage, that pulled me back to my senses, or maybe it was my mind, telling me that we were still in front of the watchful eyes of several adult protectors. And even if Max had made us invisible (although not inaudible), I would still not be able to handle having sex in front of them.

Max immediately pulled back at my thought, the loss of his lips on mine hitting me like a cold shower.

 _Sorry,_ he mumbled into my mind, sat back up straight and pushed back at his fringe, which had fallen delectably into his eyes, giving him a wild sexy look.

"Was this the method George and you came up with in your research?" I asked, breathless and warm, heart pounding wildly in my chest.

"For contraception?" Max asked equally breathless and unconsciously adjusted his clothing, which I had done a number on in my efforts to touch as much of his skin as possible.

I laughed, feeling rejuvenated and light. Happy.

A feeling almost foreign to me at this point.

"Yeah," the laughter coloring my answer.

Max stilled at the sound of it, his expression softening before he leaned forward and caught a strand of my hair in his hand, rolling it tenderly between his fingers as he looked me straight in the eyes. "I love the sound of your laugh."

I looked down, feeling flustered at his observation without knowing why.

"It's been awhile," I mumbled, sobering.

"Yeah," he agreed, regret creeping into his voice.

Our emotions dimming with that realization, it took me a moment before I looked up at him. He was still looking at me. Barely blinking. Through his inner eye, I could see him tracing every feature of my face, from the darkness of my eyelashes to the fullness of my eyebrows.

"So, what's the plan?" I asked, interrupting his ministrations.

He made me feel loved and cherished. Like no other person had ever done. Not even my parents. His love was so present. Maybe it was because of the connection - highlighting our emotions - or maybe it was simply Max's ability to shower me in his emotions with just one look.

He blinked, straightened, cleared his throat and spoke telepathically, _George and I both figured that using something with an energy base would be the best solution, seeing that our connection is thriving on energy. It might be the only way to do this._

 _Speaking its language,_ I nodded.

 _Exactly,_ Max agreed. _We discussed making me a condom out of energy first…_

I blushed. I still hadn't gotten used to the idea of Max discussing these kind of things with his grandfather.

Max shook his head at my thoughts, looking both amused and disconcerted, _Trust me, I haven't either._

Inhaling deeply, I shuffled in my seat, uncrossing my legs and straightening them out on the ground next to Max's right knee, feeling the cold from the ground slowly seep into my jeans. Leaning back on my hands, I asked, _I'm guessing the condom-thing was a no-go?_

Max was momentarily distracted by my legs, his eyes traveling down the length of my skin-tight jeans.

"Max?" I asked, amused. His admiration of my legs warmed me from the inside-out.

He blinked, smiling at me ruefully, scratched lightly above his right eye in that sensual way he usually did and continued, _Since I would be a moving object in the act, keeping the energy field attached to my… well…_

My whole face was probably red by now, becoming redder by the fact that Max didn't seem at all embarrassed by the conversation, instead rather intrigued and pleasantly entertained by my modesty.

Angling his head to the side and quirking one corner of his eyebrow, he continued, _Anyway, we reached the conclusion that it would be best if the preventing energy would be attached to a stationary object._

I laughed, rolling my eyes at him. "And that stationary object would be me?"

His eyes glinted with mischief, perhaps at my choice to speak out loud, perhaps at my laughter. "Yes," he answered clearly, causing my stomach to twirl with infatuated butterflies.

How could he make 'stationary object' sound so appealing? So sexy?

 _You know about diaphragms?_

 _Not much._

Placing his hands in the grass slightly behind his hips, he leaned back and uncrossed his legs, straightening them out in the direction of my legs, inadvertently criss-crossing them with mine.

 _The diaphragm is like a little cup_ , Max explained and for the 125th time I was entertained by the fact that he knew more about female reproduction and female health than I - a female - did.

 _It is positioned around the cervix, preferably with some spermicide cream in it, making it very difficult for sperm to reach the cervix and move into the uterus. Preventing pregnancy._

I raised my eyebrows. Maybe we should just try that? That sounded like a physical barrier that should be efficient at keeping Max's eager 'travelers' away, even if they were to be assisted by the connection.

He shook his head at my thoughts. _We can't risk it._

I frowned. "But how would it even be possible for the connection to get around that? Boosting your sperm with energy to make them like small missiles that burrows through the diaphragm?"

His huff was tinged with amusement, shaking his head slowly, looking at me with admiration and adoration.

I couldn't understand why.

"That scientific mind of yours," he clarified.

I lightly punched his arm. "You're one to talk." Between the two of us, he was definitely the science nerd.

Looking serious, he added, "The connection might make the material of the diaphragm permeable, letting stuff through."

 _Stuff?_ I grinned at him, but he just lightly shrugged.

With that he closed his eyes and turned his face to the descending sun. I observed the serenity of his face for a couple of seconds, the silence comfortable around us, even our minds momentarily at peace, before I suggested, _You're planning to make a diaphragm out of energy? Mould it around my cervix?_

Without opening his eyes, he nodded, _Spot on_.

In thought, I started worrying my bottom lip, _Will you be able to concentrate on that during the whole thing? During the… last part?_

The corners of his mouth turned upwards in a smile and it was still tantalizing to hear his voice inside my head while his mouth didn't move the least. _The orgasm, you mean?_

The heat moved up my throat, filling my cheeks, and I dropped my eyes to the lawn, picking at some straws of wet grass. _Yeah._

 _I don't know._ His voice no longer sounded certain in my head. _We might use a real diaphragm, or a condom, during our first attempts. Just to be extra safe. Plus a lot of practice before._

I frowned and looked up at him. But his eyes were still closed. To the outside observer, he looked like he was dozing off in the sunset.

 _Practice? But practice could lead to pregnancy._

With that, he opened his eyes and looked at me. _We need to practice without having actual…intercourse._

My body felt like it was on fire. I swallowed tightly. I was finding it increasingly difficult to talk about this without jumping his bones.

Before my eyes, his look turned darker with desire and his telepathic words brushed enticingly against my core, _There are many ways to have an orgasm, Miss Parker._


	12. ELEVEN

**ELEVEN**

My moans bounced off the shimmering walls, the sounds of pleasure remaining within the confines of the room.

His hands moved down my naked body, stable warm fingers swept along the curves of my breasts and waist. The wetness from his mouth was drying on the side of my neck by the time his lips touched the bony protrusions of my hip bones.

My hips lifted, pulled towards his touch, desperate for the pleasure he could provide, while the back of my head pressed into the mattress, the arching movement proceeding slowly through my yearning body.

I was acutely aware of every brush of his body against mine. Every time the dark hairs on his thighs brushed against the sensitive skin of my own thighs, having small bursts of electricity trickle through me.

Like two highly charged entities, there were (almost) literal sparks whenever - and wherever - our bodies came into physical contact.

His feelings of desire - his lust - was throbbing inside of my body, just like I knew my own was resonating inside of him. The knowledge alone that he was completely naked, that he was touching me intimately, that he could make me come with a puff of breath against some highly enticed areas, was highly erotic to me.

Knowing that he had such power over me and still decided to not abuse that power, was arousing. I had given my body up to him, to his ministrations and his love, and it was beautiful how he decided to cherish it. How his main focus was to give me pleasure.

In the end, my pleasure was his. And his pleasure was mine. It truly was a win-win situation.

My moan was disrupted by my gasp as his fingers suddenly touched me intimately. I felt his lust-filled eyes on my face, saw my own flushed face with closed eyes through the image projected into his mind, as he inched one finger inside of me.

Having him move his finger in and out of me in that slow rhythm that imitating the actual act of lovemaking was almost more seductive and sensual than actual intercourse. This way his focus was completely on me, his eyes watching every small nuanced movement on my face, his ears drinking the sounds from my mouth, his free hand on the curve of my waist soaking up every tremble and quake of my pulsating body, without his attention being distracted by his own pleasure. This way he was changing his touch in response to the noises I made, changing the pace according to the movement of my hips.

Adding a second finger, he leaned forward over my abdomen to trail slow and deliberate kisses along the midline of my stomach. His fingers loved me at a faster pace as his lips enclosed my nipple, his tongue flickering the engorged tissue, and rather expectantly bringing my orgasm crashing into my body like an electric storm. My walls contracted convulsively around his fingers while I fisted the sheet in my hands.

Slowly, I landed in reality, my hips lowering to the solidity of the mattress, Max slowly removing his fingers from my heated core.

I could still feel the warmth from the energy cap Max was keeping alive across the opening to my cervix. It was not much, only a subtle pleasurable warmth. I had come to realize that the warmth was magnified in the moment of climax, working to immediately remind me of our secondary objective in doing this.

Birth control.

But keeping the protection up during _my_ release had proved to not be a problem. At that point, Max was always incredibly in tune with what was happening to me, in his attempt to guide me to the most explosive orgasms, that his control over the energy protecting my cervix was kept intact.

The problem was his own orgasm. Our 'results' concerning that problem had been worryingly inconsistent. Sometimes it worked, most times it didn't. The energy from his own release disrupted everything, made him lose control of his abilities in general - if only for a couple of seconds. But that could be enough.

Apparently, sperm can move through the cervix within seconds. Great if you want to get pregnant. Not so great if you don't.

I had also come to realize that us not reaching climax together meant that I fell apart with my own release while his desire kept throbbing in my body, preventing me from completely reaching the ultimate peak of pleasure.

"Was that good?"

His question had me blink my eyes open, my heart still pounding in my chest, sweat pearling on my forehead.

"Uh-huh," I breathed, the breaths shallow and extremely audible in my voice.

"A+?" he asked.

I caught the mischievous wink, the sexy curl to his mouth.

A giggle wanted to break free, but my lungs were still dumbfounded by the attempt to produce a couple of pathetic gasping sounds. I settled for two thumbs up, my arms trembling with the effort.

Max Evans had a way to relax my whole body.

I stared up at the white ceiling, trying to regain function over my cooked spaghetti body, because even though Max wasn't urging me on to 'help him out', his body was.

Through the connection his unfulfilled lust was escalating and searing through me. Rapidly, my own body was responding, coming back to life, greedy for more.

Pushing up on my elbows, I looked at him seated next to my hips. My gaze briefly brushed over my own naked body, exposed without neither concealing sheets nor covering postures. I was completely comfortable with Max. He made me that way. Made me feel proud and secure in my body.

Momentarily, my memory brushed on the image of myself - standing naked in front of a full figure mirror - before meeting Max that night ages ago, to lose my virginity to him. I sharply remember my thoughts of inadequacy and my bad body image.

That was all gone by now. Max made me feel like a goddess. With the help of the connection, I could verify that he was true to both his words and actions. I could see how amazing I looked through his eyes. How attractive I was to him. How much he wanted me. All the time.

Every woman should get that boost of confidence.

Next, my eyes were on him. On his bronzy skin. On his well-toned chest. On the thickness of his thighs. I could see his need for me and I could feel how the concentrated lust in that one place bordered on painful. His dark hair was tousled, which was probably my doing. He hadn't shaved in two days, which resulted in a present sexy shadow of short stubble across the lower part of his well-chiseled face.

My heart beat faster looking at him. He made every cell of my body contract and scream with pleasure. If I was his goddess, he was my god. It was as simple as that.

Catching not only my eyes but also my thoughts, he started to crawl up to me, hands and knees sinking slowly into the mattress with every seductive movement.

The pace of my breaths - which had just started to slow down - rapidly increased with his slow approach. I could smell his masculine scent in the air as he leaned over me, his presence making me move to lay down again.

Straddling my hips with one of his muscular legs, he wrapped his arm around my waist, his hand pressing between my shoulder blades to press my upper body against his and thus semi-draping his body over mine.

His breath fluttered over my face, the weight of his body intimate and enticing, his eyes dark as cocoa.

I barely had time to fully sink into the feeling of his bare skin against mine before his lips caught mine in a deep kiss. His hand stroked between my shoulder blades, down to the small of my back, down to grab my butt cheek, before moving up again. His hand made the same journey over and over again, while his lower body moved against me.

His breaths were loud, partially drowning in the breath-stealing kisses. He wanted to embed himself inside of me. His need to do so was overwhelming. But we couldn't. Not yet. It was too risky, our birth control method not yet reliable.

We both longed for that moment. We had a lot of fun doing everything outside of actually joining, but it was not the same. Our bodies and minds were starving for the energetic bond - for the intimate closeness - that joining sexually gave us.

I admired his control. He had previously 'lost' to the connection - making love to me when he knew that we shouldn't because we didn't have any protection - but he wasn't going to let that happen again. The push from the connection was just as strong, if not stronger, than it had been in those instances, yet Max resisted.

I was hoping I was helping somewhat in that respect. Trying to hold myself back. Not leading him on too much. Give him strength to slow down if he needed to. Basically, most of the times it was only a matter of pressing my thighs together when he felt like he wanted entrance.

In this frustrated dance of lust and control, we amazingly enough managed to find some kind of middle ground where we could enjoy each other's bodies and explore the true deep love we had for each other.

This is where we found ourself with my hand reaching down to move my fingers lightly up his engorged member, hearing his breaths hitch in my ear, his hand grabbing my ass again.

In the midst of the passion and the excitation, I was aware of the tingling warmth around my cervix. I would be able to feel it wavering - I had done so before - and this was the part of our lovemaking when Max had lost control of the makeshift birth control before.

My palm closed around him and I caressed him closer to the edge. I loved touching him like this. Loved to bring him pleasure just as much as he loved to bring me over the edge. His lips were on my breast, on my collarbone, at my neck, on my lips. He was close. The whole time.

I climaxed at least four times while pleasuring him, his pleasure feeding straight into my body. I had no idea how he could control himself, how he managed to drag it out.

But eventually he let go. With the height of his orgasm, my cervix temporarily chilled, before it warmed anew with Max's directed energy. At that moment, I knew we had failed. Again.

Our shallow breaths were the only sounds in the room afterwards. My eyes were fixed on a spot on his chest, right above his dark brown nipple, and I could feel the disappointment fusing into me. Max had it worse than me. I had the luxury of enjoying my orgasms, whereas Max's were always tainted with the realization that our only means of birth control had (yet again) fallen short.

"Are you okay?" I whispered against his chest.

He was beating himself up, sinking quickly into self-blame.

"Not really," he answered truthfully. His voice was strained and he felt so far away. Even with him lying right next to me.

"We'll figure it out," I said quietly, doodling small invisible circles on his skin with my finger.

A silent moment passed before he moved his arm from a position over his head to instead wrap around my shoulders and pull me closer, pressing a kiss to my forehead.

"Yeah," he agreed, even though there was no conviction of this in his mind.

"Love you," I whispered, wanting him to know that no matter what happened, he was still the best person I knew. He was still my hero.

"Love you," he answered back, almost automatically, his thoughts miles away.

He was already trying to figure out what he could do different. Did he need another type of energy concentration? Should he use some kind of shockwave of energy inside me right after he came, to kill off the sperm? Quickly, he abolished that idea, frightened that it might hurt me somehow.

Nevertheless, his thoughts made me think of something and I lifted my head off his chest to look up at him. He was staring into the dim room with unseeing eyes.

"Maybe that's the problem," I mumbled, contemplatively.

"What is?" he asked, shifting to look down at me.

"That you are trying to work out how _you_ can fix this," I pointed out.

He was slowly inching into my mind - probably without knowing he was doing so - to find out where my line of thinking was going.

"What do you mean?" he asked, catching a strand of my hair and rolling it lightly between his fingertips.

I raised up on one elbow. "Everything else we have been trying to do separately - when it comes to the connection - hasn't seemed to work that well. Mostly it has meant that we haven't been able to use our full capacity. But as soon as we-"

"-have worked together…" Max filled in, a light of hope flashing in his eyes, leaving the obvious conclusion unsaid.

Perhaps we should be doing this together. Perhaps Max should teach me how to feed into that energy cap protecting my cervix. That way he wouldn't be alone in sustaining it. It would have a failsafe. Me.

"Because you have great control when _I_ …" I blushed, "…let go…" I was still unused to discussing our intimate activities out loud.

"Maybe you have great control when _I_ come," Max finished, the hopeful light surrounding a kid on Christmas morning coming to life in his eyes, not caring that he was using completely different speaking terms than I was. Max was not foreign to using any words he wanted to.

I smiled, a wide and engulfing smile. "You know what that means?"

He read my answer before I could stop him, but he humored me by asking, "What?", possibly wanting me to say it out loud.

I grinned. "More practicing."

He rolled his eyes, shook his head, in a feigned tired feeling of 'Oh no, not more practicing!'.

Giggling, I worked myself up his body, trying to ignore how my body responded to his as my nipples brushed against his chest, and melted our lips together. Empathically, I said, "I love you."

He lightly caressed my cheek, ran the tip of his thumb along my bottom lip, his eyes telling me the reciprocal before his mouth did, "Forever."

We laid there in silence for a couple of minutes before I broke it by declaring, "Good thing that George taught you how to soundproof the room."

Amused, he said, "A good thing. A very good."


	13. Author's Note 24th of June 2019

Hi, everyone!

It's been awhile since my last update and I'm sorry about that. The short explanation is: I fell pregnant (after trying for a long time), got really nauseous in the first trimester and really tired in the second and third, had my baby in the midst of the worst heatwave experienced by Sweden (where I'm from) and have since then been occupied with working and raising my daughter. She turned 1 two weeks ago and it's been an overwhelming experience to become a mother. I'm getting married this fall and moving around the same time, so life's busy.

With all of this going on, I've not been writing much. But I have been editing the first two parts of "Unbreakable" ("A Beautiful Lie" and "Forging Bonds") and recently got them self-published, which has been a lot of fun. I'm slowly getting my act together and have written 2 chapters already for "Surviving the truth", but I want to back up with more chapters before I start posting, to prevent you from having to wait between updates once they start rolling in.

If anyone is interested in more frequent updates, you can search "tales by jo" on Facebook and you'll find my page (called "Josephin") there (sorry, I'm unable to post direct links on this site). Thank you all for your support and for still leaving me reviews. I promise you, this story WILL be completed. Just have patience with me ;)

Love,  
Jo


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